Pedipalps are the secondary pair of forward appendages among chelicerates – a group of arthropods including spiders, scorpions, horseshoe crabs, and sea spiders. The pedipalps are lateral to the chelicerae ("jaws") and anterior to the first pair of walking legs.
The anatomy of spiders includes many characteristics shared with other arachnids. These characteristics include bodies divided into two tagmata, eight jointed legs, no wings or antennae, the presence of chelicerae and pedipalps, simple eyes, and an exoskeleton, which is periodically shed.
Psalmopoeus irminia, also known as the Venezuelan suntiger, is a species of tarantula endemic to Venezuela, Guyana and Brazil. They were first described in 1994 by F. Saager.
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, giving the spider an appearance often described as like wearing boxing gloves. The palpal bulb does not actually produce sperm, being used only to transfer it to the female. Palpal bulbs are only fully developed in adult male spiders and are not completely visible until after the final moult. In the majority of species of spider, the bulbs have complex shapes and are important in identification.
Langona warchalowskii is a species of jumping spider in the genus Langona that lives in South Africa. It was first described by Wanda Wesołowska in 2007. The spider is large with a carapace between 3 and 4 mm long and a abdomen between 2.4 and 5.8 mm. The male is significantly smaller than the male and has deeper colours. The spider has a black head, dark brown thorax and brown-black abdomen. While all the spiders have two stripes along the carapace, some have one on the abdomen and some and three. The toothless chelicerae is typical of the genus. The male can be distinguished by its copulatory organs, and particularly its short and blunt tibial apophysis. The female also has distinctive copulatory organs, including an epigyne with two small depressions, the rims of which form a shield over the gonopores.
Nigorella aethiopica is the type species of the genus Nigorella. A jumping spider that lives in Ethiopia and named in honour of the country in which it is found, it was first described in 2008 by Wanda Wesołowska and Beata Tomasiewicz. The spider is larger than others in the species with a cephalothorax that is between 4.1 and 4.8 mm long and an abdomen that is between 4.3 and 5.6 mm long. The carapace is generally brown and hairy, although the male is darker. While the male abdomen is marked by a light stripe on the topside and dots underneath, the female abdomen has a pattern of a light stripe and patches on the top and dark stripes on the bottom. As well as its larger size, the species can be distinguished by its copulatory organs. The split at the end of the appendage on the pedipalp tibia marks out the male, and the female has longer seminal ducts and thinner spermathecae than others in the genus.
Thiratoscirtus elgonensis is a species of jumping spider in the genus Thiratoscirtus that lives in Nigeria. It has only been found on Mount Elgon, after which it named. The species was first described in 2016 by Angelika Dawidowicz and Wanda Wesołowska. It is a medium-sized spider, with a cephalothorax that is between 1.8 and 2.7 mm long and an abdomen that is between 2.0 and 2.8 mm in length, both oval in shape. It is generally brown with a central lighter streak running down both the carapace, the hard upper part of the cephalothorax, and the top of the abdomen until it ends in a series of chevrons. The area around its eyes is black and Its face, or clypeus, is light brown. The male has pedipalps that are similar to the related Thiratoscirtus efik' but differs in details, including the size of the spike on the palpal tibia known as the tibial apophysis. The female has a distinctive epigyne with a heart-shaped depression and wide insemination ducts.
Urogelides is a genus of jumping spiders containing one described species, Urogelides daviesae, and other undescribed species. It was first described by Marek Michał Żabka in 2009, and is found in Queensland, Australia.
Hasarinella distincta is a species of jumping spider in the genus Hasarinella that lives in South Africa. The species was first described in 2013 by Charles R. Haddad and Wanda Wesołowska. With a dark brown oval cephalothorax] that is between 3.4 and 3.8 mm long and a brown ovoid abdomen that has a length between 3.7 and 4.5 mm. The male has a marking of three white streaks, one in the middle and two along the edges, on the carapace. The female does not. It is the copulatory organs that enable the species to be differentiated from the related Hasarinella berlandi, particularly the wider seminal ducts in the female and the oval palpal bulb in the male. It lives in both grassland and woodland.
Langona sabulosa is a species of jumping spider in the genus Langona that lives in Namibia. It was first described in 2011 by Wanda Wesołowska. The spider is large with a cephalothorax between 2.2 and 4 mm long and a abdomen between 2.2 and 4.5 mm. The female is noticeably larger than the male and has a very different shape to its much larger abdomen, being more heart-shaped than oval. It has the toothless chelicerae typical of the genus. The abdomen has a large leaf-like pattern, which differentiates it from other species in the genus, as can the yellowish-orange colour of the pedipalps on the male. The female has a unique epigyne that led Wesołowska to question where it should be allocated in the subtribe Aelurillina.
Menemerus tropicus is a species of jumping spider in the genus Menemerus that lives in Kenya and Uganda near Lake Victoria. The spider lives in large nest complexes that can stretch between trees in mangrove savannas. The species was first described in 2007 by Wanda Wesołowska, one of over 500 descriptions she has written during her lifetime. It is a small spider, with a flattened cephalothorax that is between 1.7 and 2.1 mm and a rounded abdomen between 1.7 and 2.9 mm long. The female is larger than the male and has a darker abdomen and lighter carapace. The male abdomen has a pattern that includes a brown streak and silver spots. The female has a yellowish streak, in some examples, with yellow patches. The legs are brown and yellow. The copulatory organs help distinguish the species from others in the genus. The male has a very short double embolus and very large retrolateral apophysis. The female has a narrower pocket in its epigyne, narrow insemination ducts and small spherical spermathecae.
Afrobeata firma is a species of jumping spider in the genus Afrobeata that lives in Yemen. The species was first described in 1994 by Wanda Wesołowska and Antonius van Harten. The spider has a carapace measuring between 2.9 and 3.6 mm long and an abdomen between 2.9 and 4.2 mm long. It is generally dark brown, although the underside is lighter. The male has a pattern of chevrons and spots on its abdomen. The female has shiny scales. The male also has distinctively-shaped teeth to the rear of the chelicerae while the female has a single bicuspid tooth. The front legs of the male are longer than the rest. The female copulatory organs are similar to the related Afrobeata latithorax but the seminal ducts are distinctive. They are complex and coiled, surrounding the heavily sclerotized spermathecae. The male has a small tooth-like appendage on its palpal tibia, or tibial apophysis, and a very long thin embolus that circles the round palpal bulb.
Langelurillus quadrimaculatus is a species of jumping spider in the genus Langelurillus that lives in Nigeria. It was first described in 2011 by Wanda Wesołowska and Anthony Russell-Smith. The spider is small, with a cephalothorax that is between 1.7 and 2.5 mm long and an abdomen between 2.0 and 2.2 mm long. The female is larger than the male. It can be distinguished from other species in the genus by its abdominal pattern, which is recalled in the species name, that consists of two pairs of rounded yellow patches on a brownish-grey background. The female also has a distinctive internal layout of its seminal ducts within its short and wide epigyne.
Pachyballus miniscutulus is a species of jumping spider that is native to Ivory Coast and South Africa. It lives in open grassland and in vegetation near to streams. A very small spider, it has a cephalothorax that is ranges from 1 to 1.3 mm long and an abdomen that is between 1.7 and 1.9 mm long. The spider is generally dark brown on top. The bottom of its cephalothorax is yellowish-brown and its abdomen is grey-brown and has a distinctive scutum. This scutum is referenced in the species name, which is derived from the Latin words that mean "small shield". The spider has a dark brown clypeus and yellowish-brown spinnerets. Apart from the scutum, the spider can be identified by its copulatory organs. The male has a palpal bulb that has bulges that extend below its cymbium and the female has a heart-shaped epigyne that contains a spade-like or circular section and longer insemination ducts than Pachyballus mombasensis. A member of the genus Pachyballus, the species was first described in 2020 by Wanda Wesołowska, Galina Azarkina and Konrad Wiśniewski.
Detalik anthonyi is the type species for the genus Detalik. It is a species of jumping spider that is endemic to Nigeria and was first described in 2021 by Wanda Wesołowska. A small spider like all those in the genus, it has a cephalothorax measuring between 1.7 and 2.2 mm long and an abdomen between 1.5 and 2.7 mm long. The cephalothorax has a brown top or carapace that has wide white stripes on its back and a yellow underside or sternum. The abdomen differs between the sexes. The female abdomen is brownish-grey with a lighter streak running down it while the male has a mosaic-like pattern of brown dots at the very rear. The spider has distinctive copulatory organs. The male has an irregular-shaped palpal bulb with characteristic spikes, or apophyses. One, that is attached to the bulb itself, is large and sickle-shaped; two others are much shorter. The female has copulatory openings to the sides of the epigyne that lead to particularly long insemination ducts.
Stenaelurillus wandae is a species of jumping spider in the genus Stenaelurillus that lives in India. It was first described in 2020 by Dmitri Logunov. The spider is medium-sized, with a carapace between 2.95 and 3.35 mm long and an abdomen between 2.8 and 3.5 mm long. The female is larger than the male. The colouration differs between them too, with the male having two white stripes on the carapace while the female has a pattern formed of brown and white scales. The chelicerae, clypeus, legs, pedipalps and spinnerets are generally yellow, although they may be yellow-brown on the male. The spider is distinguished from others in the area by the lack of a pocket in the epigyne of the female and the forked appendage, with different length tines, on the palpal bulb of the male.
Ranops wandae is a species of ant spider in the genus Ranops that lives in Namibia. First described in 2020 by Rudy Jocqué and Arnaud Henrard, the spider is small, measuring between 2.24 and 3.26 mm in length. The male is smaller thamn the female. The carapace is brown, bottle-shaped and has a mottled pattern only on the male. The abdomen is grey, oval and also lacks any pattern on either sex. Most of the remainder of the spider is brown. The most characteristic feature of the genus are the long legs, which can measure up to 9.15 mm (0.360 in) long in the case of the back legs of the female. The legs are also yellow. The male also has a distinctive large curved median apophysis and curved retrolateral tibial apophysis on the palpal bulb which helps identify this species against others in the genus.
Pancorius wesolowskae is a species of jumping spider in the genus Pancorius that lives in China. The species was first described in 2020 by Wei-Hang Wang and Cheng Wang. The spider is large, measuring between 6.3 and 7.93 mm in overall length. The carapace is dark brown and the opisthosoma dark grey with a pattern of light and dark. The female is larger than the male but otherwise very similar in colouration. The female spider is similar to Pancorius wangdicus but differs in have slit-shaped copulatory openings compared to the other species. The male has a blunter and shorter retrolateral tibial apophysis than the related Pancorius cadus.
Pochyta aurantiaca is a species of jumping spider in the genus Pochyta that lives in Gabon. A small spider, it was first described in 2021 by Wanda Wesołowska and Tamás Szűts. It has an oval cephalothorax that is between 1.8 and 2.8 mm long and an ovoid abdomen, between 1.8 and 2.4 mm long. The female is lighter than the male and has a narrower abdomen. The spider has a generally yellow to light brown carapace and a yellowish abdomen, but the female specimens have patterns that can include black, reddish-orange and reddish patches. All the spiders have light yellow spinnerets. The front pair of legs are longer than the others and have brown spines. The spider has unique copulatory organs, with the male having a clump of long dense hairs around its small projection on the palpal tibia, called a tibial apophysis, and the female having sclerotized hoods around the copulatory openings on its epigyne.
Pochyta equatorialis is a species of jumping spider in the genus Pochyta that lives in Gabon and Uganda. A small spider, it has an oval cephalothorax that is between 1.9 and 2.3 mm long and an ovoid abdomen, between 1.9 and 2.4 mm long. The female is lighter than the male and has a smaller carapace. The female also has lighter spinnerets and legs. All the spiders have a darker eye field, which have a scattering bristles. The spider has distinctive copulatory organs, although the female is similar to the related Pochyta maddisoni. The male has a distinctive clump of long hairs on its palpal tibia, a blunt apophysis and an irregularly-shaped palpal bulb. The species was first described in 2021 by Wanda Wesołowska and Tamás Szűts and is named for its equatorial distribution.
