Hogna zuluana


Hogna zuluana is a species of spider in the family Lycosidae. It is endemic to South Africa and is commonly known as the banded burrow-living wolf spider.

Distribution

Hogna zuluana is found in four provinces of South Africa, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, and Mpumalanga.

Habitat and ecology

This species is a free-living ground dweller that lives in open burrows.
It has been sampled from the Grassland and Savanna biomes at altitudes ranging from 91 to 1730 m.

Description

Hogna zuluana is known only from females.
The cephalothorax is red-brown with straight rusty yellow marginal bands and a rusty yellow median band that is barely widened in front of the striae. The eye region is black.
The abdomen is dorsally grey-brown, with an anterior median longitudinal angled blackish trapezoidal spot bordered on each side by three white hair spots that lie in a lateral light yellowish larger spot. Behind this are four to five median black angled spots accompanied on each side by a longitudinal row of three white-haired tufts. Ventrally, behind the pale yellow epigynal area, is a black median wedge mark surrounded by a black angular stripe that merges backwards to form a V. The sternum is pale yellow with a black median band.

Conservation

The species has a large geographic range and is protected in Roodeplaatdam Nature Reserve, Faerie Glenn Nature Reserve, Klipriviersberg Nature Reserve, uMkhuze Game Reserve, and Kruger National Park.

Etymology

Hogna zuluana is named after Zululand, a historical region in KwaZulu-Natal where the type locality is situated.

Taxonomy

The species was described by Roewer in 1959, with the type locality given only as Zululand.