''Tanzania meridionalis'' 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 ...

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...

'' that lives in South Africa. First described in 2011 by Charles Haddad and Wanda Wesołowska, it is a small spider, with a

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 ...

between long and an

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 top of the spider is generally light brown with a black eye field and a pattern of stripes and streaks. The underside is lighter. It has a single thin long hair in the middle of its face, or clypeus. The male has distinctive copulatory organs with a very short colled embolus. The female has not been described.

Taxonomy

''Tanzania meridionalis'' is a

of jumping spider that was first described by Charles Haddad and Wanda Wesołowska in 2011. It was one of over 500 species that that the Polish arachnologist Wesołowska identified during her career, making her one of the most prolific in the field. They allocated it to the

'', first

circumscribed In geometry, the circumscribed circle or circumcircle of a polygon is a circle that passes through all the vertices of the polygon. The center of this circle is called the circumcenter and its radius is called the circumradius. Not every polyg ...

by A. Ö. Koçak & M. Kemal in 2008. The spider was the first to be described as a new member of the genus rather than transferred. Spiders in the genus, which had previously been named ''Lilliput'' by Wesolowska and Anthony Russell-Smith in 2000 after the nation in

Gulliver's Travels ''Gulliver's Travels'', or ''Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships'' is a 1726 prose satire by the Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan ...

, are related to ''

Euophrys ''Euophrys'' is a genus of jumping spiders that was first described by Carl Ludwig Koch in 1834. The small black ''E. omnisuperstes'' lives on Mount Everest at elevations up to 6,700 meters, possibly making it the most elevated animal in the world ...

'' and '' Talavera''. The genus had been renamed as it was already held by a genus of

beetle Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...

. 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 Phylogenetic nomenclature is a method of nomenclature for taxa in biology that uses phylogenetic definitions for taxon names as explained below. This contrasts with the traditional approach, in which taxon names are defined by a ''type'', which ...

, the genus ''Tanzania'' was placed in 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 ...

Euophryini This is a member of 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, ...

Saltafresia. Junxia Zhang and Maddison speculated that it may be in a clade with ''

Thyenula ''Thyenula'' is a genus of African Salticidae, jumping spiders that was first described by Eugène Simon, Eugène Louis Simon in 1902. Species it contains twenty-four species, found only in Africa: *''Thyenula alotama'' Wanda Wesołowska, Wesolo ...

''.

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 ...

placed the genus in an informal group called euophryines in 2017. The species is named for the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

word ''meridionalis'', which means southern and refers to the fact that the spider had a more southerly distribution than other members of the genus discovered at the time.

Description

''Tanzania meridionalis'' is a small spider, typical for the genus. The male has a medium high, light brown

that ranges between long and is typically wide. It is covered in very light hairs and has a pattern consisting of a darker stripe down the middle and two streaks towards the rear on the top. The eye field is short and black with a few white hairs to the front of the eyes. The underside, or sternum, is yellow with darker edges. The spider's face or clypeus is very low and has a single thin long hair in the middle. The mouthparts are distinctive with yellowish chelicerae, labium and

maxillae The maxilla (plural: ''maxillae'' ) in vertebrates is the upper fixed (not fixed in Neopterygii) bone of the jaw formed from the fusion of two maxillary bones. In humans, the upper jaw includes the hard palate in the front of the mouth. The t ...

. The male spider's

is similar in size to its carapace, measuring between in length and having a width of between . It is an ovoid that has a pattern of wave-like streaks that cross it, further apart to the front and closer to the rear. The topside of the abdomen has a covering of fine long, brown and whitish hairs. The underside is pale. The spider has yellow

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. The spider's

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 generally dark yellow with brown rings, although the first pair are darker. They all have long brown hairs. The spider's copulatory organs are very distinctive. The pedipalps are large and orange. 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 ...

is oval with a large bump towards the bottom. The seminal duct meanders inside it. It has a very short colled embolus. The small size of its embolus is a key distinguishing feature for the species. The female is not yet described.

Distribution and habitat

Initially all ''Tanzania'' spiders were identified in Tanzania. The genus is now considered to live across tropical Africa. ''Tanzania meridionalis'' is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to South Africa. Since the discovery of this species, the related '' Tanzania minutus'', ''

Tanzania mkomaziensis ''Tanzania mkomaziensis'' is a jumping spider that lives in Tanzania. It was originally known as ''Lilliput mkomaziensis''. References

Endemic fauna of Tanzania Salticidae Spiders described in 2000 Spiders of Africa Fauna of Tanzania { ...

'', '' Tanzania parvulus'' and ''

Tanzania striatus ''Tanzania striatus'' is a species of jumping spider in the genus ''Tanzania'' that lives in South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by ...

'' have also been found in the country. 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 ...

for ''Tanzania meridionalis'' was found in the Erfenis Dam Nature Reserve in Free State in 2005. Other examples have been seen in the local area. The spider thrives in grassland.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * {{Taxonbar, from=Q3339331 Salticidae Spiders described in 2011 Spiders of Africa Spiders of South Africa Taxa named by Wanda Wesołowska