''Mogrus cognatus'' is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

of jumping spider in the

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

Mogrus ''Mogrus'' is a genus of jumping spiders that was first described by Eugène Louis Simon in 1882. Species it contains twenty-nine species, found only in Asia, Europe, and Africa: *'' Mogrus albogularis'' Simon, 1901 – South Africa *''Mogrus a ...

'' that lives in United Arab Emirates and Yemen. The spider was first defined in 1994 by Wanda Wesołowska and Anthony Van Harten. It is a small spider. The male has a dark brown or fawn-brownish

carapace A carapace is a Dorsum (biology), dorsal (upper) section of the exoskeleton or shell in a number of animal groups, including arthropods, such as crustaceans and arachnids, as well as vertebrates, such as turtles and tortoises. In turtles and tor ...

that range between long and a yellow-white or dark brown

abdomen The abdomen (colloquially called the belly, tummy, midriff, tucky or stomach) is the part of the body between the thorax (chest) and pelvis, in humans and in other vertebrates. The abdomen is the front part of the abdominal segment of the torso. ...

between long. The female has not been described. The spider is similar to the related '' Mogrus fulvovittatus'', but can be distinguished by its copulatory organs. It has a long thin embolus that encircles the

palpal bulb The two palpal bulbs – also known as palpal organs and genital bulbs – are the copulatory organs of a male spider. They are borne on the last segment of the pedipalps (the front "limbs" of a spider), giving the spider an appearance often descr ...

and has a distinctive membane at its base.

Taxonomy

''Mogrus cognatus'' is a jumping spider that was first described by Wanda Wesołowska and Anthony Van Harten in 1994. It is one of over 500

identified by the Polish arachnologist Wesołowska during her career. They allocated the species to the

'', first raised by

Eugène Simon Eugène Louis Simon (; 30 April 1848 – 17 November 1924) was a French naturalist who worked particularly on insects and spiders, but also on birds and plants. He is by far the most prolific spider taxonomist in history, describing over 4, ...

in 1882. In

Wayne Maddison Wayne Paul Maddison , is a professor and Canada Research Chair at the departments of zoology and botany at the University of British Columbia, and the Director of the Spencer Entomological Collection at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. His research ...

's 2015 study of spider phylogenetic classification, the genus ''Mogrus'' was placed in the

clade A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...

Simonida within the

subfamily In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end subfamily botanical names with "-oideae", and zoologi ...

Saltafresia. He considered that it a member of the

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English language, English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in p ...

Salticini. Two years later, in 2017,

Jerzy Prószyński Jerzy Prószyński (born 1935 in Warsaw) is a Polish arachnologist specializing in systematics of jumping spiders (family Salticidae). He is a graduate of the University of Warsaw, a long-term employee of the Siedlce University of Natural Scienc ...

grouped the genus with nine other genera of jumping spiders under the name Hyllines, which was named after the genus '' Hyllus''. He used the shape of the embolus as a distinguishing sign for the group. Hyllines was itself tentatively placed within a supergroup named Hylloida.

Description

The species is small. The male has a high

cephalothorax The cephalothorax, also called prosoma in some groups, is a tagma of various arthropods, comprising the head and the thorax fused together, as distinct from the abdomen behind. (The terms ''prosoma'' and ''opisthosoma'' are equivalent to ''cepha ...

that is between long and wide. It has a dark brown

that has dense white hairs on the side and two white streaks on the back or fawn-brownish carapace with a brown stripe across the middle at the back. The eye field is black, with long brown bristles near the eyes. The clypeus is covered with dense long white hairs. The chelicerae are very dark, nearly black. The sternum is yellow. The

is thin and has a pointed end. It is dark brown with two streaks formed of white hairs on its back and a dark yellow underside with a brown stripe down the middle or yellow-white with brown dots on its back, a brown band on the sides and a dark stripe on the underside. It is between long and wide. The

spinneret A spinneret is a silk-spinning organ of a spider or the larva of an insect. Some adult insects also have spinnerets, such as those borne on the forelegs of Embioptera. Spinnerets are usually on the underside of a spider's opisthosoma, and are ...

s are light brown. The

legs A leg is a weight-bearing and locomotive anatomical structure, usually having a columnar shape. During locomotion, legs function as "extensible struts". The combination of movements at all joints can be modeled as a single, linear element ...

are dark yellow with brown hairs and spines. It has dark pedipalps. The

is typical for the genus.It has a narrow cymbium and long tibial apophysis, or appendage, with very thin tip. It has a very long and thin embolus that entwines the palpal bulb and has a broad membrane at its base. The female has not been described. The spider is similar to others in the genus. It is related to '' Mogrus fulvovittatus'', but can be distinguished by the membrane at the base of the embolus. Examples found in Yemen are darker than those in the United Arab Emirates.

Distribution

''Mogrus cognatus'' lives in the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. The

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

was discovered near

Zabid Zabid ( ar, زَبِيد) (also spelled Zabīd, Zabeed and Zebid) is a town with an urban population of around 52,590 people on Yemen's western coastal plain. It is one of the oldest towns in Yemen, and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since ...

in Yemen in 1993. Examples have been found in the Al Mahwit Governorate. It was first identified in the United Arab Emirates in Khor al-Khwair in 2007.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * * * * * {{Taxonbar, from=Q2418879 Invertebrates of the Arabian Peninsula Salticidae Spiders described in 1994 Spiders of Asia Taxa named by Wanda Wesołowska