''Noideattella tsiba'' 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 araneomorph spider in the

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

Oonopidae Oonopidae, also known as goblin spiders, is a family of spiders consisting of over 1,600 described species in about 113 genera worldwide, with total species diversity estimated at 2000 to 2500 species. The type genus of the family is ''Oonops'' K ...

, (also called "goblin spiders"). This species can only be found on the

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

n island

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

.Álvarez-Padilla, Ubick & Griswold, 2012 : ''Noideattella and Tolegnaro, two new genera of goblin spiders from Madagascar, with comments on the gamasomorphoid and silhouettelloid oonopids (Araneae, Oonopidae).'' American Museum Novitates, ,
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. Two individual specimens were collected when the species was first discovered. The first was a male

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 ...

which measured 1.4 mm across. The other, a female

paratype In zoology and botany, a paratype is a specimen of an organism that helps define what the scientific name of a species and other taxon actually represents, but it is not the holotype (and in botany is also neither an isotype nor a syntype). Of ...

measured 1.6 mm.

Taxonomy and naming

''N. tsiba'' was first reported from Madagascar in 2012, and its discovery was part of a project called the Goblin Spider Planetary Biodiversity Inventory. The report also named the genera ''Noideatella'' (to which ''N. tsiba'' belongs) and ''

Tolegnaro ''Tolegnaro'' is a genus of spiders in the family Oonopidae Oonopidae, also known as goblin spiders, is a family of spiders consisting of over 1,600 described species in about 113 genera worldwide, with total species diversity estimated at 2 ...

.'' While 11 species were reported within ''Noideatella'' in this report, only two species were reported from ''Tolegnaro''.

Evolution

''N. tsiba'' appears to be most closely realated to '' N. saka'' and '' N. lanaka''. A

cladistic analysis Cladistics (; ) is an approach to biological classification in which organisms are categorized in groups ("clades") based on hypotheses of most recent common ancestry. The evidence for hypothesized relationships is typically shared derived chara ...

done in between the 11 species of ''Noideatella'' and two species of ''Tolegnaro'' supports a

monophyletic In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gro ...

relationship between these genera. This means that the common ancestor of ''Noideatella'' and ''Tolegnaro'' likely share a common ancestor within the Oonopid family. The Oonpid spiders have a

fossil record A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in ...

dating back to the early

Cretaceous Period The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of t ...

(specifically the

Albian The Albian is both an age of the geologic timescale and a stage in the stratigraphic column. It is the youngest or uppermost subdivision of the Early/Lower Cretaceous Epoch/Series. Its approximate time range is 113.0 ± 1.0 Ma to 100.5 ± 0.9 M ...

faunal stage.Penney, D. (2006). Fossil oonopid spiders in Cretaceous ambers from Canada and Myanmar. Palaeontology 49(1): 229–235. Penney, D. (2004). New spiders in upper Cretaceous amber from New Jersey in the American Museum of Natural History (Arthropoda: Araneae). Palaeontology 47(2): 367–375. Madagascar began to separate from Africa well ahead of the early Cretaceous.Brownfield, M.E., and Schenk, C.J. - Assessment of undiscovered oil and gas resources of the Seychelles Province, east Africa, in Brownfield, M.E., compiler, Geologic assessment of undiscovered hydrocarbon resources of Sub-Saharan Africa: U.S. Geological Survey Digital Data Series 69–GG, chap. 13, 12 p., https://dx.doi.org/10.3133/ds69GG. Given that ''N. tsiba,'' the rest of its genus, and the genus ''Tolegnaro'' are all endemic to Madagascar, it is likely that the ''Noideatella-Tolegnaro'' common ancestor was present on Madagascar after the island had rifted away from Africa.

Distribution and habitat

While only two specimens were initially collected, ''N. tsiba'' has been observed in nine locations- eight of which are in the northernmost region of Madagascar. The ninth observation took place in the southeast portion of the island. The collected specimens were found living in

leaf litter Plant litter (also leaf litter, tree litter, soil litter, litterfall or duff) is dead plant material (such as leaves, bark, needles, twigs, and cladodes) that have fallen to the ground. This detritus or dead organic material and its constituent ...

on the floor of a dry tropical forest (''Forêt de Binara'' in

Antsiranana Province Antsiranana is a former province of Madagascar with an area of 43,406 km2. It had a population of 1,188,425 (July, 2001). Its capital was Antsiranana. A diversity of ethnic groups are found in the province, including Anjoaty, Sakalava, Antaka ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q3342711 Oonopidae Spiders of Madagascar Spiders described in 2012