| Diagnosis |
Leg span: 2 - 3 cm, a tall ocular tubercle with prominent eyes, and closely crowded lateral processes which usually, along with the trunk, have long dorsal spines. Spines are also carried on the chelifore scape and in rows along the leg. It has a short neck, crowded with a bulbous oviger base on each side. The male ovigers have distally inflated fifth and sixth segments which are often collapsed. The tarsus, with strong distal spines, is usually as long as or longer than the propodus which has a short main claw and vestigial or missing auxiliary claws. A wide range of variations occur among the many specimens of this species. This is attested to by its several synonyms. This is the genotype of a group of 20 predominantly Antarctic species which belong to a discrete assemblage called the australe group (Ref. 156). It shares the diagnostic characters enumerated above with the others and forms one of the groups into which this cumbersome genus must be divided if any sense is to be made of trying to separate its multitude of species (Ref. 9). |
