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3 unusual facts about Epipompilus insularis


Epipompilus insularis

insularis females hunt, usually in sunshine for retreat-making spiders in the concealed places where female spiders retreat to, such as rolled dead leaves; hollow plant stems; flax bushes; dead rolled fronds of tree-ferns; the abandoned cocoons of the bag-moth Liothula omnivora; deserted galleries of wood-boring beetles; and even the empty hatched galls of the moth Morova subfasciata in Muehlenbeckia australis and beneath loose bark on tree trunks.

This pattern appears to be an example of Allen's rule and is seen in other New Zealand Pompilids but is less marked in E. insularis due to its greater extent of sexual dimorphism with the males always being more uniformly dark.

Prey species are known to come from a number of genera of spiders including Trite and Clubiona.


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