Euophrys pseudogambosa Strand 1915

Euophrys pseudogambosa Strand, 1915 (Figs 4E, 11 M-N, 18A-C)

Euophrys pseudogambosa Strand, 1915c: 168 (Dmf).

Euophrys pseudogambosa Logunov, 1996 c: 55, f. 1-7 (mf).

Euophrys pseudogambosa Logunov, 1997 a: 351, f. 39-41 (m).

Euophrys pseudogambosa Prószyński, 2003: 51, f. 171-173, 177-181, 186-189, 102-193 (mf).

Remarks. Color macrophotographs and drawings disclose diversity of Israeli E. pseudogambosa, indicating possibly separate species status. Live E. pseudogambosa A from Givat Ram, studied in 1988 by Prószyński (Figs 18A), had ventral surfaces of femora I-II red, abdomen dorsally blackish brown, characters changing 8 * in alcohol speedily, in a few minutes, from black to light dotted black (Fig. 18A), beginning right from the moment of spider dying in alcohol. Photograph of E. pseudogambosa B (Fig. 18C) by Amir Weinstein of specimen observed in the Haifa area show femora I-II entirely black (which confirms drawing of leg I by Logunov (Fig. 18B)). The diversity in this species in Israel corroborates observations of diversity in many other species, being presumably result of rapid proliferation of Salticidae in warm climate of that geographical area. Unfortunately such observations are rarely documented, due to rarity, as yet, of macrophotographic documentation.

Euophrys semiglabrata (Simon, 1868) is studied in a parallel paper (Prószyński, Noordam, Oger & Schäfer (2018 – in press)) and transferred to a new genus of its own.

8 The first author watched unusually rapid change of dorsal pattern in Euophrys pseudogambosa immediately after submerging it in ethyl alcohol during preservation - there appeared streams of liquid, floating beneath transparent tegument, carrying a crowd of minute black globules, deposited later into different pattern of dots and lines, characteristic of Euophrys - but in fact artifacts. This is different from gradual bleaching of colors in other preserved Salticidae, a process lasting years.