Langelurillus squamiger is a species of jumping spider in the genus Langelurillus that lives in South Africa. The species was first described in 2018 by Wanda Wesołowska and Charles Haddad. It is small, the male being slightly smaller than the female, with a cephalothorax that is between 1.9 and 2.4 mm (0.075 and 0.094 in) long and an abdomen between 1.5 and 2.4 mm (0.059 and 0.094 in) long. It is generally dark brown, with an orange pattern on the abdomen. It is very similar to other spiders in the genus, but differs in the shape of the male's tibial apophysis and the way that the female has both lobes at the back of the epigyne and short seminal ducts. The spider lives in leaves and eats Odontotermes termites alongside Stenaelurillus guttiger and Stenaelurillus modestus.
| Langelurillus squamiger | |
|---|---|
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| A spider of the Langelurillus genus | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Subphylum: | Chelicerata |
| Class: | Arachnida |
| Order: | Araneae |
| Infraorder: | Araneomorphae |
| Family: | Salticidae |
| Subfamily: | Salticinae |
| Genus: | Langelurillus |
| Species: | L. squamiger
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| Binomial name | |
| Langelurillus squamiger Wesołowska & Haddad, 2018
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Taxonomy
editLangelurillus squamiger was first described by Wanda Wesołowska and Charles Haddad in 2018.[1] It was one of over 500 species identified by the Polish arachnologist Wesołowska during her career.[2] The species is named for the Latin word for scaly.[3] They allocated it to the genus Langelurillus, which had been raised by Maciej Próchniewicz in 1994.[4] The genus is related to Aelurillus and Langona but the spiders are smaller and, unlike these genera and Phlegra, they lack the parallel stripes on the back of the body that is feature of the majority of these spiders.[5] In 2015, Wayne Maddison placed the genus in the subtribe Aelurillina, which also contained Aelurillus, Langona and Phlegra, in the tribe Aelurillini, within the subclade Saltafresia in the clade Salticoida.[6] In 2016, Jerzy Prószyński placed the same genera in a group named Aelurillines based on the shape of the spiders' copulatory organs.[7]
Description
editLangelurillus squamiger is a small spider. The male has a cephalothorax that is between 1.9 and 2.1 mm (0.075 and 0.083 in) long and between 1.4 and 1.6 mm (0.055 and 0.063 in) wide. It has a dark brown carapace, rather high and covered with short white hairs, with a black eye field. The chelicerae are brown and toothless. The labium is light brown. The abdomen is smaller than the carapace, between 1.5 and 1.7 mm (0.059 and 0.067 in) long and between 1.3 and 1.4 mm (0.051 and 0.055 in) wide. It is rounded and brown, with a pattern made up of yellow patches.[3] The underside is yellowish-grey. The spinnerets are black and yellow. The spider has yellowish-brown and very hairy legs. The pedipalps are brown and also very hairy, with a very convex tegulum with small toothlike appendages or spikes. The spider has a number of tibial apophysis, or spikes. The palpal bulb has an embolus that coils around its tip.[8] The embolus is hidden behind a shield.[9]
The female is larger than the male, with a carapace typically 2.4 mm (0.094 in) long and between 1.6 and 1.9 mm (0.063 and 0.075 in) wide and an abdomen measuring between 2.2 and 2.4 mm (0.087 and 0.094 in) in length and 1.7 and 2.0 mm (0.067 and 0.079 in) in width.[3] The carapace is similar to colour and the abdomen darker. The spider has a broad epigyne with a strongly sclerotised plate on the back half and two distinctive lobes. Internally, it has short seminal ducts leading to oval spermathecae.[8]
The spider is similar to related spiders, particularly Langelurillus orbicularis, but can be distinguished by the shape of the male's tibial apophysis and the morphology of the female's copulatory organs. The particular, the female of the two species have a very similar epigyne but Langelurillus orbicularis is less sclerotised and lacks the two lobes. Lobes can also be found on Langelurillus manifestus, but this species has much longer looping seminal ducts.[3]
Distribution and habitat
editAlmost all, if not all, Langelurillus spiders live in sub-Saharan Africa.[10] Langelurillus squamiger is endemic to South Africa.[1] The holotype was discovered in the Tembe Elephant Park in 2015. It lives in leaf litter. The spider was found living near, and eating, Odontotermes termites. The spider was found alongside the jumping spiders Stenaelurillus guttiger and Stenaelurillus modestus; both also are known to eat termites.[8]
References
editCitations
edit- ^ a b World Spider Catalog (2017). "Langelurillus squamiger Wesolowska & Haddad, 2018". World Spider Catalog. 24.0. Bern: Natural History Museum. Retrieved 16 July 2023.
- ^ Wiśniewski 2020, p. 6.
- ^ a b c d Wesołowska & Haddad 2018, p. 892.
- ^ Próchniewicz 1994, p. 27.
- ^ Próchniewicz 1994, p. 28.
- ^ Maddison 2015, p. 279.
- ^ Prószyński 2017, p. 95.
- ^ a b c Wesołowska & Haddad 2018, p. 893.
- ^ Maddison 2015, p. 249.
- ^ Logunov & Azarkina 2018, p. 120.
Bibliography
edit- Logunov, Dmitri V.; Azarkina, Galina N. (2018). "Redefinition and partial revision of the genus Stenaelurillus Simon, 1886 (Arachnida, Araneae, Salticidae)". European Journal of Taxonomy. 430: 1–126. doi:10.5852/ejt.2018.430.
- Maddison, Wayne P. (2015). "A phylogenetic classification of jumping spiders (Araneae: Salticidae)". The Journal of Arachnology. 43 (3): 231–292. doi:10.1636/arac-43-03-231-292. S2CID 85680279.
- Próchniewicz, Maciej (1994). "The jumping spiders of the Ethiopian Region. Part I. New genus Langelurillus gen. n. (Araneae, Salticidae) from Kenya". Annales Zoologici, Warszawa (45): 27–31.
- Prószyński, Jerzy (2017). "Pragmatic classification of the World's Salticidae (Araneae)". Ecologica Montenegrina. 12: 1–133. doi:10.37828/em.2017.12.1.
- Wesołowska, Wanda; Haddad, Charles R. (2018). "Further additions to the jumping spider fauna of South Africa (Araneae: Salticidae)". Annales Zoologici. 68 (4): 879–908. doi:10.3161/00034541ANZ2018.68.4.011. S2CID 86626109.
- Wiśniewski, Konrad (2020). "Over 40 years with jumping spiders: on the 70th birthday of Wanda Wesołowska". Zootaxa. 4899 (1): 5–14. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.4899.1.3. PMID 33756825. S2CID 232337200.