The Rainbow of Mexigonus

#Mexigonus2017 is over, and I’m back in Canada. I’m left with many memories of Mexico, strengthened friendships, great samples of new jumping spider species, and good data. As the first of a few retrospective posts here, I present The Rainbow of Mexigonus:

The Rainbow of Mexigonus

We saw the whole visible spectrum among the colours of Mexigonus. The red was intense; the orange was common; the green was delicate; the blue was stunning; the purple was unexpected. You’ll notice I didn’t mention yellow. For some reason, strong yellow is not obvious in Mexigonus adornments (except as a momentary flash in the metallic iridescence of the “quetzal” Mexigonus).

This is what the whole spiders look like, in the same sequence as the rainbow. The caption says who they are. You’ll notice that the multicoloured “quetzal” gets three appearances!

The cast of colours:

“quetzal” from El Triunfo	“red moon” from Chicahuaxtla
“orange ghost” from San Jose del Pacifico	“orange yellow” from Montebello
“big moss” from El Triunfo, female	“yellow face” from San Fernando
“green ghost” from Humo Chico	“quetzal” from El Triunfo
“blue legs” from Puerto Antonio	“quetzal” from El Triunfo
“purple tomato” from Lachatao	“purple tomato” from Lachatao

The second one down on the left side is worth mentioning — it’s an orange ghost! You may remember the green ghost from Humo Chico north of Ixtlan. When we headed south to the Sierra Madre del Sur and collected the “bell bottom pants“, we also found what we thought was the same green ghost species. But closer inspection showed it to be a different species — even fuzzier, without the white moustache, and with legs orange instead of green. Here is a better picture of him:

“Orange ghost” Mexigonus

Mexigonus is just so diverse, and almost all undiscovered.