About Pisaurina brevipes (Emerton, 1911)
Pisaurina brevipes is a species of nursery web spider found in the eastern half of North America, ranging from Ontario south to Florida and west to Kansas. This species is distinguished from the closely similar species Pisaurina mira by its relatively shorter legs. For P. brevipes, the ratio of the first patella-tibia segment length to the cephalothorax length is less than 2.0 in males and less than 1.4 in females. In comparison, this ratio is greater than 2.0 for male P. mira and greater than 1.4 for female P. mira. The edges of the abdominal band on P. brevipes are straighter than those seen on P. mira. The natural history of P. brevipes is not well understood; the only records known to Carico suggest the species prefers the habitats of grasslands, bogs, and swamps. Like other nursery web spiders, P. brevipes rears its young in bell-shaped sheet-like nursery webs made of spider silk. P. brevipes is hard to tell apart from P. mira unless the male pedipalps are examined. This difficulty arises because the color patterns of P. brevipes fall within the natural range of variation of the more abundant P. mira. Female P. brevipes have a body length of 11 to 13 mm, while males have an average body length of about 10.8 mm.
