Tasmanian Thipsels

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A new thipsel from the NW

I found thipsel M77 way up the Forth River valley this year. It's an attractively coloured species that lurks in wet sclerophyll litter, currently represented by two males and a presumed female deposited in TMAG:

M77

M77 male (bottom, partly dissected) and presumed female (top)

The gonopod telopodite arcs posteriorly and has a peculiar rounded "shelf" at its base (just left of the air bubble in image below). That probably puts M77 in an undescribed genus with 10-12 other thipsels from the NW, West Coast and SW part of the Central Plateau.

M77 gonopod

Medial view of left gonopod telopodite

The geographically closest thipsels are similarly "arced" and "shelved": M18 in the Wilmot River catchment ca 20 km to the NW, and M20 in the Arm River catchment, ca 15 km to the S. I'll be doing more sampling in this area (when winter finishes!) to see how close the three thipsels get to each other.

M77, M18, M20 gonopods

2026-07-09