''Rhondes atypicus'' is an

endemic species Endemism is the state of a species being found only 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 foun ...

jumping spider Jumping spiders are a group of spiders that constitute the family (biology), family Salticidae. , this family contained over 600 species description, described genus, genera and over 6,000 described species, making it the largest family of spide ...

in the

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

Rhondes ''Rhondes'' is a genus of New Caledonian Salticidae, jumping spiders that was first described by Eugène Simon, Eugène Louis Simon in 1901. It was briefly considered a synonym of ''Hasarius'', but was revalidated after the results of a 2008 molec ...

'' that lives in New Caledonia. First described in 2016 by Barbara Patoleta, the species has been found on both Grande Terre and Isle of Pines, living in

rainforest Rainforests are forests characterized by a closed and continuous tree Canopy (biology), canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforests can be generally classified as tropi ...

s. It is small and slender, with a wide brown hairy

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 ...

and thinner

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

. The abdominal markings differ between the male and female, which gives rise to the species name. The male has light and dark patches on its abdomen, and has a longer and thicker

embolus An embolus (; : emboli; from the Greek ἔμβολος "wedge", "plug") is an unattached mass that travels through the circulatory system, bloodstream and is capable of creating blockages. When an embolus Vascular occlusion, occludes a blood vess ...

than other species in the genus. The female, which is larger, has a striped abdominal pattern, which distinguishes the species from the similar '' Rhondes flexibilis''.

Taxonomy

''Rhondes atypicus'' was first identified in 2016 by Barbara Patoleta. The

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

was named after the way that the patterns on the

differ between the male and the female. The

'' was raised in 1901 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 Taxonomy (biology), taxonomist in history, ...

of jumping spiders in

New Caledonia New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...

. It has been 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 use of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. The definition is contested, in part due to conflict ...

''Viciriini'' in the

clade In biology, a clade (), also known as a Monophyly, monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that is composed of a common ancestor and all of its descendants. Clades are the fundamental unit of cladistics, a modern approach t ...

''Astioida''. Genetic analysis confirms that it is related to other species found only on the island, including ''

Trite ignipilosa ''Trite'' is a genus of jumping spiders first described by Eugène Simon in 1885. Most of the 18 described species occur in Australia and New Zealand, with several spread over islands of Oceania, one species even reaching Rapa in French Polynes ...

'', and not as closely related to the genus ''

Heliophanus ''Heliophanus'' is a genus of the spider family Salticidae (jumping spiders). Most of the almost 170 described species occur in Africa, with many others found in the Palearctic region from Europe to Japan. Species , the World Spider Catal ...

'' and other members of the ''

Chrysillini Chrysillini is a tribe of jumping spider in the family Salticidae. In Maddison's 2015 revision of the family, the subfamily Heliophaninae was reclassified as a junior synonym of Chrysillini. Genera * '' Afraflacilla'' * '' Augustaea'' * '' ...

'' tribe as was originally suggested by Simon. The fact that the species on the island are both closely related to each other and genetically distinct from those found off the island is used as evidence of the evolution taking place after the breakup of

Gondwana Gondwana ( ; ) was a large landmass, sometimes referred to as a supercontinent. The remnants of Gondwana make up around two-thirds of today's continental area, including South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia (continent), Australia, Zea ...

Description

The spider is one of five members of the genus described by Patoleta in 2016. Small and slender, it has a shape that is typical of the genus, with a wide

, thinner

, very large

chelicerae The chelicerae () are the arthropod mouthparts, mouthparts of the subphylum Chelicerata, an arthropod group that includes arachnids, horseshoe crabs, and sea spiders. Commonly referred to as "jaws", chelicerae may be shaped as either articulated ...

and very long

endite The arthropod leg is a form of jointed appendage of arthropods, usually used for walking. Many of the terms used for arthropod leg segments (called podomeres) are of Latin origin, and may be confused with terms for bones: ''coxa'' (meaning hip, : ...

s. The cephalothorax is light to dark brown, with a covering of white scales, which measures long and wide in the male and long and wide in the female. The

clypeus The clypeus is one of the sclerites that make up the face of an arthropod. In insects, the clypeus delimits the lower margin of the face, with the labrum articulated along the ventral margin of the clypeus. The mandibles bracket the labrum, but ...

is light brown with white hairs and the

is grey-brown. The male's abdomen measures long and wide and has light and dark patches. The female has an abdomen long and wide with three brown bands across it. The striped pattern is distinctive and differentiates the spider from the similar '' Rhondes flexibilis''. The chelicerae and legs are brown, as are the

pedipalp Pedipalps (commonly shortened to palps or palpi) are the secondary pair of forward appendages among Chelicerata, chelicerates – a group of arthropods including spiders, scorpions, horseshoe crabs, and sea spiders. The pedipalps are lateral to ...

s in the male. The

is longer and thicker than other members of the genus. The female has an

epigyne The epigyne or epigynum is the external genital structure of female spiders. As the epigyne varies greatly in form in different species, even in closely related ones, it often provides the most distinctive characteristic for recognizing species. ...

with a shallow pocket behind wide copulatory ducts.

Distribution and habitat

''Rhondes atypicus'' was first identified from the male

holotype A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...

and female allotype, that were found around

Mont Panié Mont Panié is a mountain on the island of Grande Terre in New Caledonia, a special collectivity of France located in the south-west Pacific Ocean. At , it is the island's highest point. Mont Panié is situated in the Chaîne Centrale mountain ...

on Grande Terre, New Caledonia in 1984. It has also been identified in other

locations around the island and the nearby island of Isle of Pines, and is predicted to have a distribution in other inland areas around the

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the o ...

. Despite the existence of similar environments on other islands across the Pacific Ocean, there is no evidence of the species in any other locale, and so it is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only 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 foun ...

to New Caledonia.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * * * {{Taxonbar, from=Q27439972 Spiders of New Caledonia Salticidae Spiders described in 2016