Communal Red Philoponella
The females may vary in colour, ranging from reddish orange to brown, with longitudinal white to yellow stripes on the abdomen. The males, which are smaller, are uniformly reddish orange, without abdominal stripes, although some individuals may have a paler abdomen.
The species was described from a female specimen collected in the forest ("dans les forêts") in Singapore by Achille Raffray (1844-1923), a French explorer and amateur zoologist-turned-diplomat who had served as the French Consul to Singapore in the 19th century.
| Length | ♀ 6–7 mm; ♂ 2–4 mm |
| Distribution | Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia (Java), Brunei. |
| Habitat | Understorey of rainforests, often within the webs of spiders of other families such as Cyrtophora cylindroides. Psechrus singaporensis. Sphedanus quadrimaculatus. or Nihonhimea mundula. |
| Biology | The females habitually bend the metatarsi and tarsi of legs I outward. They often spin their orb webs close to one another’s in small "colonies" (usually fewer than 10 individuals). The males are often found near the centre of each colony. A colony may be merged with the webs built by the larger spiders mentioned above. In any one colony females tend to outnumber males, a female to male ratio of about 4:1 being recorded from a colony in Malaysia. |
Kingdom Animalia (Animals)
Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)
Subphylum Chelicerata (Chelicerates)
Class Arachnida (Arachnids)
Order Araneae (Spiders)
Suborder Araneomorphae (Typical Spiders)
Uloborus raffrayi (Original description ♀)
Simon, 1891c Observations biologiques sur les arachnides: 13
Uloborus tristis (Original description ♀)
Kulczyński, 1908a Araneae musei nationalis Hungarici in regionibus Indica et Australia a Ludovico Biro collectae: 467, pl. 9, f. 22
Uloborus tristis
Kulczyński, 1908d Symbola ad faunam Aranearum Javae et Sumatrae cognoscendam: 560
Philoponella raffrayi (♀, Transferred from Uloborus, Synonym of Uloborus tristis)
Lehtinen, 1967 Classification of the cribellate spiders and some allied families, with notes on the evolution of the suborder Araneomorpha: 258, f. 495
* Retrieved from the World Spider Catalog.
Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia (Java), Brunei.