Veterinary session

Commonly known as jumping spiders, Salticidae are distinguished from other spider groups by their superb eyesight. Spiders with such excellent visual abilities frequently have bright colours, which are often used in sexual selection. The genus Maltecora is such a jumping spider group, where the males have bright colours. Despite their conspicuous appearance, the genus is rather poorly known and they have only been found so far in São Tomé and Príncipe, two small volcanic islands in the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean.

During my research, I illustrated several Maltecora specimens and sorted them into morphospecies. I was able to find all the three species that are already known, and two more distinct groups. These are described as species new to science. DNA extraction was conducted from the specimens. I was focusing on CO1 as it is often used as a DNA barcode, therefore a lot of other sequences were available.

Several genera sharing similar morphological characters could be potentially related to Maltecora. Chrysilla, Phintella, Mexcala, Thiania, Tarne, Omoedus and many more. A larger dataset was collected, sequences were multiple-aligned, and a phylogenetic tree was inferred. Based on the results, it is almost certain that Maltecora belongs to the tribe Chrysillini. The tribe itself has numerous bright-coloured clades and Maltecora interestingly seems to originate from a dull-coloured clade, suggesting a completely new origin or the bright colours.