| Allocosa brasiliensis | |
|---|---|
| |
| male A. brasiliensis | |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Subphylum: | Chelicerata |
| Class: | Arachnida |
| Order: | Araneae |
| Infraorder: | Araneomorphae |
| Family: | Lycosidae |
| Genus: | Allocosa |
| Species: | A. brasiliensis
|
| Binomial name | |
| Allocosa brasiliensis (Petrunkevitch, [1910])
| |
| Synonyms[1] | |
|
Allocosa difficilis (Mello-Leitão, 1951) | |
Allocosa brasiliensis is a burrowing wolf spider species from southern South America. Long known to science, it remained almost unstudied until its unusual sexual behavior was described in the early 21st century.[2]
This ground-dwelling spider is native to mainly coastal areas, from southeastern Brazil via Uruguay and Argentina to southern Chile, though its known occurrences are patchy. To what extent it is found on the Atlantic coast south of the Río de la Plata remains largely unknown, for example. While the males have been known for over a century, the females were only described in 1980.[3]
- ^ Platnick (2010)
- ^ BBC News 2011-APR-12: Cannibal wolf spiders are ladykillers
- ^ Casanueva (1980), Capocasale (1990), Platnick (2010)