Langelurillus squamiger is a species of jumping spider in the genus Langelurillus that lives in South Africa. The species was first described in 2018 by Wanda Wesołowska and Charles Haddad. It is small, the male being slightly smaller than the female, with a cephalothorax that is between 1.9and long and an abdomen between 1.5and long. It is generally dark brown, with an orange pattern on the abdomen. It is very similar to other spiders in the genus, but differs in the shape of the male's tibial apophysis and the way that the female has both lobes at the back of the epigyne and short seminal ducts. The spider lives in leaves and eats Odontotermes termites alongside Stenaelurillus guttiger and Stenaelurillus modestus.
Langelurillus squamiger was first described by Wanda Wesołowska and Charles Haddad in 2018.[1] It was one of over 500 species identified by the Polish arachnologist Wesołowska during her career. The species is named for the Latin word for scaly. They allocated it to the genus Langelurillus, which had been raised by Maciej Próchniewicz in 1994. The genus is related to Aelurillus and Langona but the spiders are smaller and, unlike these genera and Phlegra, they lack the parallel stripes on the back of the body that is feature of the majority of these spiders. In 2015, Wayne Maddison placed the genus in the subtribe Aelurillina, which also contained Aelurillus, Langona and Phlegra, in the tribe Aelurillini, within the subclade Saltafresia in the clade Salticoida. In 2016, Jerzy Prószyński placed the same genera in a group named Aelurillines based on the shape of the spiders' copulatory organs.
Langelurillus squamiger is a small spider. The male has a cephalothorax that is between 1.9and long and between 1.4and wide. It has a dark brown carapace, rather high and covered with short white hairs, with a black eye field. The chelicerae are brown and toothless. The labium is light brown. The abdomen is smaller than the carapace, between 1.5and long and between 1.3and wide. It is rounded and brown, with a pattern made up of yellow patches. The underside is yellowish-grey. The spinnerets are black and yellow. The spider has yellowish-brown and very hairy legs. The pedipalps are brown and also very hairy, with a very convex tegulum with small toothlike appendages or spikes. The spider has a number of tibial apophysis, or spikes. The palpal bulb has an embolus that coils around its tip. The embolus is hidden behind a shield.
The female is larger than the male, with a carapace typically 2.4mm long and between 1.6and wide and an abdomen measuring between 2.2and in length and 1.7and in width. The carapace is similar to colour and the abdomen darker. The spider has a broad epigyne with a strongly sclerotised plate on the back half and two distinctive lobes. Internally, it has short seminal ducts leading to oval spermathecae.
The spider is similar to related spiders, particularly Langelurillus orbicularis, but can be distinguished by the shape of the male's tibial apophysis and the morphology of the female's copulatory organs. The particular, the female of the two species have a very similar epigyne but Langelurillus orbicularis is less sclerotised and lacks the two lobes. Lobes can also be found on Langelurillus manifestus, but this species has much longer looping seminal ducts.
Almost all, if not all, Langelurillus spiders live in sub-Saharan Africa. Langelurillus squamiger is endemic to South Africa.[1] The holotype was discovered in the Tembe Elephant Park in 2015. It lives in leaf litter. The spider was found living near, and eating, Odontotermes termites. The spider was found alongside the jumping spiders Stenaelurillus guttiger and Stenaelurillus modestus; both also are known to eat termites.