Euophrys leipoldti

Euophrys leipoldti or the Karoo Euophrys Jumping Spider is a species of jumping spider in the genus Euophrys that is endemic to South Africa. It lives in karoo and succulent karoo. The female was first described in 1903 by George and Elizabeth Peckham and the male in 2014 by Wanda Wesołowska, Galina Azarkina and Anthony Russell-Smith. It is a small spider, with a body that consists of an oval cephalothorax that measures between 1.9 and 2.1 mm long and a narrower abdomen that is between 1.8 and 2.4 mm long. The female has a larger abdomen than the male. The spider is generally yellowish-brown to brown, although some examples have a darker topside of the cephalothorax, or carapace. The spider has a mottled pattern on its abdomen. The male has slightly longer brown front legs, the remainder being yellow. The female has yellowish-brown legs that have brown patches and rings. Its copulatory organs are distinctive. The female has the longest insemination ducts in the genus and the male has an unusual spiral embolus.

Taxonomy
Euophrys leipoldti is a species of jumping spider that was first described by George W. Peckham & Elizabeth G. Peckham in 1903. They allocated it to the genus Euophrys, which had been first circumscribed by Carl Ludwig Koch in 1834. The genus is named for a Greek word that can be translated "fair eyebrows". The species is named for Christiaan Friedrich Leipodt who found the first examples. It is known as the Karoo Euophrys Jumping Spider. Initially, the only examples to be described were female, a description of the male having to wait for more a century until it was completed by Wanda Wesołowska, Galina Azarkina and Anthony Russell-Smith in 2014.

In Wayne Maddison's 2015 study of spider phylogenetic classification, the genus Euophrys was listed to the 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 a subgroup of genera called Evophrydeae after the latter name. It is a member of the clade Saltafresia. Analysis of protein-coding genes showed it was particularly related to Thorelliola. In 2016, Prószyński added the genus to a group of genera named Euopherines, named after the genus. This is a member of the supergroup of genera Euphryoida.

Description
Euophrys leipoldti is a small spider with a body divided into two main parts: a larger cephalothorax and a smaller abdomen. The male has an oval cephalothorax that is typically 2.1 mm long and 1.6 mm wide. The carapace, the hard upper part of the cephalothorax, is yellowish-brown to brown and covered in white hairs. The spider's eye field is dark brown or black and covered in brown hairs. There is a thin line of white hairs that run down the middle, crossed with a thicker line. The underside of the cephalothorax, or sternum, is brownish-yellow. The spider's face, or clypeus, is also yellowish-brown with a scattering of white scales visible on its surface. The chelicerae are stour and brown, again with small white scales, and have two teeth to the front and one to the back.

The male's abdomen is slightly smaller than its carapace, being typically 1.8 mm long and typically 1.3 mm wide. The top has a mottled pattern of dense brown and white hairs marked with a pattern of darker spots that form a streak across the middle, which itself breaks into a succession of chevrons near the back. The underside is light brown. The spider has brownish spinnerets and book lung covers. The front legs are longer than the rest and generally brown, apart from patches of yellow, and covered in brown hairs. The remaining legs are yellow and marked with brown rings.

The female is has a slightly smaller cephalothorax than the male, typically 1.9 mm in length and 1.5 mm in width, and an abdomen that is larger, between 2.4 mm long and 1.8 mm wide. It has a dark carapace with a pattern of white bands on the edges that extend into the eye field. Some examples have a brown carapace with a darker eye field, covered in dense shiny hairs, and a yellowish-brown sternum. The chelicerae are also yellowish-brown, and have a dense covering of white hairs. The abdomen is yellowish and covered in white and brown hairs. The pattern is different to the male but similarly mottled, and consists of small patches. All the legs are yellowish-brown with brown patches and rings. It has a large number of long brown leg spines. In some examples, the legs are covered in white hairs.

The spider has distinctive copulatory organs. The female epigyne has two round depressions near the front and two copulatory openings that are partially hidden by small flaps. These lead via very long and looping insemination ducts to bean-shaped spermathecae. The male has brown pedipalps and a yellow cymbium, covered in brown hairs. Brown hairs also cover the palpal tibia, which has a pronounced protrusion, or tibial apophysis, that is larger than other species. The remainder of the copulatory organs have white hairs. The palpal bulb has a very long and lumpy extrusion at its base and a long embolus that spirals around vertically before curving up and back towards the cymbium. It is the shape of the embolus that most distinguishes the species from the related Euophrys gracilis. Similarly, the length of the insemination ducts, the longest in the genus, help identify the female.

Distribution and habitat
Euophrys spiders live across the world, although those found in North America may be accidental migrants and those in Central and South America misidentfications. In Africa, they are mainly found in the southern part of the continent. Euophrys leipoldti is endemic to South Africa. The female holotype was discovered near Clanwilliam in Western Cape. The first male was seen, in a grouping of three females and six males, in Karoo National Park in 1985 at an altitude of 1200 m above sea level. Other examples have been found in Northern Cape, including eight females and five males identified in Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in 1987.

Most Euophrys spiders seem to prefer living in forests. Euophrys leipoldti thrives in arid environments that prevail in the western side of South Africa. It is particularly common in karoo and succulent karoo.