Description of a new species of armored spider from Myanmar (Araneae: Tetrablemmidae)

Abstract

The Tetrablemmidae is a family of small to very small haplogyne, ecribellate, three-clawed spiders characterized mainlyby the complex pattern of abdominal scuta (with dorsal, lateral and ventral plates) which justifies their common name?armoured spiders? (Shear 1978, Lehtinen 1981, Jocqué & Dippenaar-Schoeman 2006). They have a dorsal shield ofprosoma heavily sclerotized, usually with rugous, pitted or reticulated surface, distinctly modified in the males of manygenera. They lack direct eyes (anterior median), and several genera may lack some or all of the indirect eyes as well. Oneof the recognized tribes, Tetrablemmini (subfamily Tetrablemminae), contains the type genus of the family: TetrablemmaO. Pickard-Cambridge typically known by having four eyes displaced posteriorly in males, which have a convexclypeus, sometimes with tubercles, and chelicerae with anterior horns (Figs 6, 8─9; Lehtinen 1981: 56; Tong & Li 2008;Burger 2008).We examined a small series of a Tetrablemma species collected in Myanmar which does not belong to any of thepreviously known species. The aim of this contribution is to describe this new species.