''Stenaelurillus jocquei'' is a

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), ...

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 ...

'' Stenaelurillus'' that lives in Cameroon. It was first described in 2018 by Dmitri Logunov and Galina Azarkina. The spider is medium-sized, with a

carapace A carapace is a 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 tortoises, the unde ...

between long and

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 ...

between long. The female is slightly larger than the male. The colouration differs between examples, which have been termed the light form and dark form. The carapace is brown and has two white stripes and the abdomen is brown with three white spots and three white stripes, the abdomen being darker in the dark form. The clypeus is yellowish brown in the light form and brown in the dark form. The male light form has iridenscent hairs on the clypeus and its brown eye field. The

spinnerets 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 ar ...

of the female light form are yellow, the male brown and the dark form darker still. The species can be best distinguished from the similar ''

Stenaelurillus hirsutus ''Stenaelurillus hirsutus'' is a species of jumping spider in the genus '' Stenaelurillus'' that lives in Central Africa, Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, Tanzania, and Uganda. The species name is the Latin word for hairy and the genus name is rela ...

'' by its copulatory organs. The male has a ribbon-like spiralling

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 ...

and the female has large round

spermatheca The spermatheca (pronounced : spermathecae ), also called ''receptaculum seminis'' (: ''receptacula seminis''), is an organ of the female reproductive tract in insects, e.g. ants, bees, some molluscs, Oligochaeta worms and certain other in ...

Taxonomy

''Stenaelurillus jocquei'' was first described by Dmitri Logunov and Galina Azarkina in 2018. It was placed in the

'' Stenaelurillus'', 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 Taxonomy (biology), taxonomist in history, ...

in 1886. The genus name relates to the genus name '' Aelurillus'', which itself derives from the Greek word for cat, with the addition of a Greek stem meaning narrow. It was placed in the subtribe Aelurillina 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 ...

Aelurillini by

Wayne Maddison Wayne Paul Maddison (born 1958) is a Canadian evolutionary biologist, arachnologist, and biological illustrator. He is Canada Research Chair in Biodiversity and a professor at the departments of zoology and botany at the University of British ...

in 2015, who listed the tribe 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 ...

Saltafresia. Two years later, in 2017, it was grouped with nine other genera of jumping spiders under the name Aelurillines. The

is named after Rudy Jocqué, the collector of the type series.

Description

The spider is medium-sized and appears in two forms, which have identical copulatory organs but different colouration. These are termed the light form and dark form. The male of the light form has a brown

that measures in length and in width. It is covered in dark brown scales and has two wide stripes made of white scales, along with edging also of white scales. The abdomen is brown, long and wide, and has a pattern consisting of three white spots and three white stripes. The eye field is dark brown and is decorated with long brown iridescent hairs. The

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 ...

is yellow with brown hairs and the clypeus is yellowish brown with yellow hairs, also iridescent. The

are brown, the legs are brown and yellow and 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 are yellow. 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 shaped like a bulge and has distinctive appendages. The

is long, spiralled and ribbon-like. The light form female is similar to the male in shape but overall slightly larger. The carapace the same length but wide and the abdomen has a length of between and width of between . The colouring is similar to the male but lighter, and the iridescent hairs are lacking. The spinnerets and legs are all yellow, while the pedipalps are yellow with brown bristles. The

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. ...

is flat and has a deep narrow pocket. The copulatory openings are large and has a heavily

sclerotized Sclerosis (also sclerosus in the Latin names of a few disorders) is a hardening of tissue and other anatomical features. It may refer to: * Sclerosis (medicine), a hardening of tissue * in zoology, a process which forms sclerites, a hardened exo ...

rim. It has short and wide insemination ducts and large round

e. The dark form differs in that it has a slightly shorter carapace long and has a darker abdomen that is long and wide. The chelicerae and clypeus are brown and covered with very dark brown hairs. The pedipalps and spinnerets are also darker brown and the legs darker too. The spider is very similar to ''

'', although it has two rather than three stripes. The longer spiralling embolus is a distinguishing feature of the male, while the way that the pocket in the epigyne of the female sits between the copulatory openings and the round, rather than elongated spermathecae, differentiate the female.

Distribution

The species 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 Cameroon. The

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 ...

was identified based on a specimen collected in a

gallery forest A gallery forest is one formed as a corridor along rivers or wetlands, projecting into landscapes that are otherwise only sparsely treed such as savannas, grasslands, or deserts. The gallery forest maintains a more temperate microclimate above th ...

in the Faro Game Reserve in 2007. It has also been found in nearby

savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach th ...

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * * * * {{taxonbar, from1=Q56650819 Arthropods of Cameroon Endemic fauna of Cameroon Salticidae Spiders described in 2018 Spiders of Africa