Pseudicius Unicus
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''Spadera'' is a
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 ...
of
jumping spiders Jumping spiders are a group of spiders that constitute the family Salticidae. As of 2019, this family contained over 600 described genera and over 6,000 described species, making it the largest family of spiders at 13% of all species. Jumping spi ...
containing the single species, ''Spadera unica''. It was first described by
George and Elizabeth Peckham George Williams Peckham (March 23, 1845 – January 10, 1914) and Elizabeth Maria Gifford Peckham (December 19, 1854 – February 11, 1940) were a married couple who were early American teachers, taxonomists, ethologists, arachno ...
in 1894, and has only been found in
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 ...
.


Taxonomy

First described in 1894, ''Spadera unica'' was transferred to ''
Pseudicius ''Pseudicius'' is a genus of the jumping spiders first described by Eugène Simon in 1885. The name is combined of Greek ''pseudo'' "false" and the salticid genus name ''Icius''. The small genus '' Wesolowskana'' (formerly known as ''Luxuria'') sh ...
'' 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 1901. The genus ''Spadera'' remained sunk into ''Pseudicius'' until 2017, when
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 ...
reinstated ''Spadera unica''. Prószyński accepted that ''S. unica'' was similar to other members of his informal group "pseudiciines" (especially species of '' Rudakius''), but considered that there were sufficient differences, such as in the shape of the tibial apophysis of 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 ...
, to retain a separate genus. The representative genus of Prószyński's "pseudiciines" is ''Pseudicius''. In Maddison's 2015 classification of the family Salticidae, ''Pseudicius'' is placed in the tribe Chrysillini, part of the
Salticoida Salticoida is an unranked clade of the jumping spider family Salticidae. It is the larger and more widespread of the two subdivisions of the "typical" jumping spiders (subfamily Salticinae), occurring effectively world-wide. Its sister clade is ...
clade of the subfamily
Salticinae Salticinae is a subfamily of jumping spiders (family Salticidae). It includes over 90% of the known species of jumping spiders. The subfamily is divided into two unranked clades: Amycoida and Salticoida. Description Members of the subfamily Sa ...
.


References

Monotypic Salticidae genera Salticidae {{Salticidae-stub