Mexcala macilenta

Mexcala macilenta is a jumping spider that was first described by Wanda Wesołowska and Anthony Russell-Smith in 2000.{{cite web|author=World Spider Catalog|year=2017|title=Mexcala macilenta Wesołowska & Russell-Smith, 2000|website=World Spider Catalog|publisher=Natural History Museum|place=Bern|url= https://wsc.nmbe.ch/species/30840/Mexcala_macilenta |version=18.0|accessdate=9 June 2017}} They allocated the species to the genus Mexcala, first raised by George and Elizabeth Peckham in 1902.{{sfn|Wesołowska|2009|page=149}} The genus was a member of the tribe Heliophaninae alongside Pseudicius and Cosmophasis, which was absorbed into Chrysillini by Wayne Maddison in 2015.{{sfn|Maddison|Bodner|Needham|2008|page=57}}{{sfn|Maddison|2015|page=252}} The tribe is a member of the clade Saltafresia within the subfamily Salticoida.{{sfn|Maddison|2015|page=278}} A year later, in 2016, Jerzy Prószyński allocated the genus to the Heliophanines group of genera, which was named after the genus Heliophanus. The genera share characteristics, including having a rather uniform, mainly dark appearance.{{sfn|Prószyński|2017|page=29}} The species name is derived from the Latin word meaning lean or thin.{{sfn|Wesołowska|Russell-Smith|2000|page=69}}

Like all Mexcala spiders, the species is slender and medium-sized to large.{{sfn|Wesołowska|2009|page=152}} The male has a dark brown carapace that is typically {{convert|3.2|mm|in|abbr=on}} in length and {{convert|2.0|mm|in|abbr=on}} in width. There is a pattern made up of wide rusty brown streak in the middle. It has a short black eye field that has a dusting of brown bristles. The chelicerae are brown with a serrated front edge and a single tooth to the rear. The labium and sternum are dark brown. The oval hairy abdomen is typically. {{convert|3.4|mm|in|abbr=on}} in length and {{convert|1.8|mm|in|abbr=on}} in width. It is generally rusty-brown with black edging and a distinctive large black pattern shaped like a triangle in the middle.{{sfn|Wesołowska|Russell-Smith|2000|page=69}} Some examples have three black bands crossing the abdomen. The underside is blackish.{{sfn|Wesołowska|2009|page=166}} The spider has dark spinnerets and very long brown legs covered in brown hairs and spines. The pedipalp has a thin tibial apophysis.{{sfn|Wesołowska|Russell-Smith|2000|page=69}} The embolus is fixed to the tegulum.{{sfn|Maddison|2015|page=252}} It lacks the triangular lobe on the palpal bulb that other species in the genus possess.{{sfn|Wesołowska|Russell-Smith|2000|page=68}}

The female is larger than the male. It has a carapace that is typically {{convert|3.4|mm|in|abbr=on}} long and {{convert|2,2|mm|in|abbr=on}} wide.{{sfn|Wesołowska|Russell-Smith|2000|page=69}} It is oval and brown with a lighter short eye field that is covered with short thick bristles. The eyes have black surrounds. The clypeus is low, the chelicerae dark brown with short thick spines. The labium and sternum are brown. The oval abdomen is a greyish-russet with white scales forming a fringe on the dark triangular pattern. Typically {{convert|5.5|mm|in|abbr=on}} long and {{convert|3.1|mm|in|abbr=on}} wide, the abdomen is clothed in delicate short colourless hairs interspersed with occasional brown bristles and long dark hairs on the edges. Two diagonal white lines cross the edge, running into the dark grey underside. The spinnerets are dark and the legs are similar to the male. The sclerotised epigyne has a large central depression. The copulatory openings lead to straight thick-walled seminal ducts and spherical receptacles. It has very small accessory glands.{{sfn|Wesołowska|Tomasiewicz|2008|page=26}}

Like many jumping spiders, Wesołowska and Tamás Szűts noted that Mexcala spiders mimic ants.{{sfn|Wesołowska|Szűts|2001|page=523}} Some are particularly similar to members of the Camponotus genus. However, they mainly resemble Mutillidae, species of wasp that have ant-like characteristics. The species particularly resembles the female, which is wingless, in its body proportions.{{sfn|Wesołowska|2009|page=152}} The spiders live amongst the species of ant and ant-like insect that they mimic, and preys upon.{{sfn|Pekár|Haddad|2011|page=133}}{{sfn|Pekár|Petráková Dušátková|Haddad|2020|page=6}}

Like other jumping spiders, Mexcala macilenta is mainly a diurnal hunter that uses its good eyesight to spot its prey.{{sfn|Richman|Jackson|1992|page=33}} It attacks from the front and captures its prey behind the head.{{sfn|Pekár|Petráková Dušátková|Haddad|2020|page=5}} It uses visual displays during courtship and transmits vibratory signals through silk to communicate to other spiders.{{sfn|Richman|Jackson|1992|page=34}} The spines on the spider's chelicerae may be used for digging holes to act as underground hiding places.{{sfn|Wesołowska|2009|page=153}}

Mexcala spiders can be found across Africa and the Arabian peninsula.{{sfn|Wesołowska|2009|page=153}} Mexcala macilenta lives in Ethiopia and Tanzania. The female holotype comes from Mkomazi National Park in Tanzania, and was found in 1995 living on a hillside containing Acacia and Commiphora species. Male specimens were found at the same site.{{sfn|Wesołowska|Russell-Smith|2000|page=68}} The first example to be identified in Ethiopia was a female discovered in 1988 in Sidamo Province living in a valley amongst Acacia trees. The species prefers shrubland,{{sfn|Wesołowska|2009|page=166}}

{{Reflist|30em}}

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• {{cite journal | last=Maddison | first=Wayne P. |title=A phylogenetic classification of jumping spiders (Araneae: Salticidae) | journal=The Journal of Arachnology | year= 2015 | volume=43 | number=3 | pages=231–292 | doi=10.1636/arac-43-03-231-292|s2cid=85680279 | author-link=Wayne Maddison}}
• {{cite journal | last1=Maddison | first1=Wayne P. | last2=Bodner| first2=Melissa R. | last3=Needham | first3=Karen M. | year=2008 | title=Salticid spider phylogeny revisited, with the discovery of a large Australasian clade (Araneae: Salticidae) | journal=Zootaxa | volume=1893| pages=49–64 | doi=10.11646/zootaxa.1893.1.3}}
• {{cite journal | last1=Pekár | first1=Stano | last2=Haddad | first2=Charles | title=Trophic Strategy of Ant-Eating Mexcala Elegans (Araneae: Salticidae): Looking for Evidence of Evolution of Prey-Specialization | journal=The Journal of Arachnology | volume=39 | number=1 | year=2011 | pages=133–38 | url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/partpdf/229277 | doi=10.1636/Hi10-56.1}}
• {{cite journal | last1=Pekár | first1=Stano | last2=Petráková Dušátková | first2=Lenka | last3=Haddad | first3=Charles R. | year=2020 | title=No ontogenetic shift in the realised trophic niche but in Batesian mimicry in an ant-eating spider | journal=Scientific Reports | volume=10 | number=1250 | doi=10.1038/s41598-020-58281-3 | url= https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-58281-3| doi-access=free | pmc=6985134 }}
• {{cite journal | last=Prószyński | first=Jerzy | year=2017 | title=Pragmatic classification of the World's Salticidae (Araneae) | journal=Ecologica Montenegrina | volume=12 | pages=1–133 | doi=10.37828/em.2017.12.1 | author-link=Jerzy Prószyński| doi-access=free}}
• {{cite journal | last1=Richman | first1=David B. | last2=Jackson | first2=Robert R. | title=A review of the ethology of jumping spiders (Araneae, Salticidae) | journal= Bulletin of the British Arachnology Society | year=1992 | volume=9 | number=2 | pages=33–37}}
• {{cite journal | last=Wesołowska | first=Wanda | year=2009 | title=A revision of the spider genus Mexcala Peckham and Peckham, 1902 (Araneae: Salticidae) | journal=Genus | volume=20 | number=1 | pages=149–186 | url= https://archive.org/details/genus-0867-1710-20-149 | author-link1=Wanda Wesołowska}}
• {{cite journal | last1=Wesołowska | first1=Wanda | last2=Russell-Smith | first2=Anthony | year=2000 | title=Jumping spiders from Mkomazi Game Reserve in Tanzania (Araneae Salticidae) | journal=Tropical Zoology | volume=13 | number=1 | pages=11–127 | doi=10.1080/03946975.2000.10531126 | doi-access=}}
• {{cite journal | last1=Wesołowska | first1=Wanda | last2=Russell-Smith | first2=Anthony | year=2011 | title=Jumping Spiders (Araneae: Salticidae) from Southern Nigeria | journal=Annales Zoologici | volume=63 | number=3 | pages=553–561 | doi=10.3161/000345411X603409 | s2cid=83517018 | url=http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.3161/000345411X603409| url-access=subscription }}
• {{cite journal | last1=Wesołowska | first1=Wanda | last2=Szűts | first2=Tamás | year=2001 | title=A New Genus of Ant-Like Jumping Spiders from Africa (Araneae: Salticidae) | journal=Annales Zoologici | volume=51 | number=4 | pages=523–528}}
• {{cite journal | last1=Wesołowska | first1=Wanda | last2=Tomasiewicz | first2=Beata | year=2008 | title=New species and records of Ethiopian jumping spiders (Araneae, Salticidae) | journal=Journal of Afrotropical Zoology | volume=4 | pages=3–59}}

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{{Taxonbar|from=Q2724716}}

Category:Arthropods of Ethiopia

Category:Arthropods of Tanzania

Category:Salticidae

Category:Spiders described in 2000

Category:Spiders of Africa

Category:Taxa named by Wanda Wesołowska