Sparassidae (family)

A Huntsman Spider at Bruce, ACT

Sparassidae (family) at Bruce, ACT - 10 Feb 2019
Sparassidae (family) at Bruce, ACT - 10 Feb 2019
Sparassidae (family) at Bruce, ACT - 10 Feb 2019
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Identification history

Sparassidae (family) 3 Jun 2020 YumiCallaway
Sparassidae (family) 3 Jun 2020 YumiCallaway
Unidentified 30 Mar 2020 Bron

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User's notes

Three individuals in a shelter. Apparently unknown in the ACT?

4 comments

YumiCallaway wrote:
   2 Jun 2020
Somewhat similar abdominal pattern/colouring to #4207572
Bron wrote:
   2 Jun 2020
And to #4255286 Yumi. I found the same species again some 60m to the west of my first sighting. I ran it by the people on the Australian & NZ Arachnid Photography page and was asked by Linda Raynor "I've spent lots of time looking at sparassids in Canberra and never seen this one. What habitat did you find it in?" She lives in the US but apparently studied here. Alison's record is interesting too, they look to be the same.
YumiCallaway wrote:
   2 Jun 2020
That's really interesting!!
Well, since there don't really seem to be revisions of Sparassidae in Australia, I took a look through all of the photos compiled into ALA under Sparassidae sp and I've found a few other sightings which I think may be reflective of these individuals. I think they all have an ID of Neosparassus sp.
The first 3 are the most similar. The following are others which had other shared qualities:
https://biocache.ala.org.au/occurrences/7de4c014-80b2-4532-9d23-98bc93c835f2
https://biocache.ala.org.au/occurrences/af9f29e3-b85d-4dc7-99a4-51704d9792d3
https://biocache.ala.org.au/occurrences/ec2b0ccc-154e-4009-b16f-559ba95f5e83

https://biocache.ala.org.au/occurrences/91711c16-7dc5-43e5-996d-c4470bfb65fd
https://biocache.ala.org.au/occurrences/6f478e49-cc8b-4f59-930c-435018808024
https://biocache.ala.org.au/occurrences/1a759104-e8ca-4c40-825e-93a40158f98e
https://biocache.ala.org.au/occurrences/b4bc0315-6d0f-4f5d-85ba-89a1fdca1593

In the meantime, it looks like Sparassidae sp. (family) has been confirmed for your more recent sighting so I'll confirm this one and Alison's sighting as Sparassidae sp to put them all in the same place.
Bron wrote:
   3 Jun 2020
Good idea. Thanks - you certainly turned up some interesting records, so broadly scattered around the country. I'll have to watch that patch during my surveys, and further afield, for more sightings.

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  • 5mm to 12mm Animal size

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