Thyenula haddadi

Thyenula are medium-sized to large spiders. They have a body that is divided into two main parts: a rounded cephalothorax, behind that, and a more bulbous abdomen. The male Thyenula haddadi has a moderately high, with a gentle sloping rear, cephalothorax that is between 1.9 and 3.1 mm (0.07 and 0.12 in) long and 1.5 and 2.3 mm (0.06 and 0.09 in). Its carapace, the hard upper part of the cephalothorax, is brown with a darker eye field that has a marking of two oblique short streaks made of white hairs and a v-shape between its eyes. This pattern is one way of telling the species from related species like Thyenula leighi. There are white streaks on its sides and, in some examples, two small rounded patches on a depression on its upper surface, its fovea. The part of the underside of the carapace known as the sternum is brownish orange. Its chelicerae has two teeth at its front margins and one more behind. Its remaining mouthparts, including its labium and maxillae, are also brown but have paler tips. Behind its cephalothorax, the male has an ovoid abdomen that is between 1.9 and 2.7 mm (0.07 and 0.11 in) long and between 1.5 and 2 mm (0.06 and 0.08 in) wide. Its topside is lighter than its carapace, particularly in yellowish sides that are broken with small dark irregular patches. …

Although Thyenula spiders can be found across Southern Africa,Thyenula haddadi is endemic to South Africa. The species has only be found in Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu-Natal. It has been seen living on the bark of pine trees.

Thyenula haddadi is a species of jumping spider, a member of the family Salticidae, that was first described by the arachnologists Wanda Wesołowska, Galina Azarkina and Anthony Russell-Smith in 2014. They allocated it to the genus Thyenula, which had been itself been first circumscribed by the naturalist Eugène Simon in 1902. The spider was one of over 500 species identified by Wesołowska during her career, only Simon having described more. It is named after the South African arachnologist Charles R. Haddad. In 2015, the evolutionary biologist Wayne Maddison undertook a phylogenetic classification that showed that the genus is a member of tribe Euophryini. First circumscribed by Simon in 1901, the tribe has also been known as Euophrydinae, but the original name is now more prevalent. It is a member of the clade Saltafresia. The genus was part of a proposed clade named after it alongside the related genus Rumburak. In 2017, the arachnologist Jerzy Prószyński added the genus to a group of genera named Euopherines.