Phintella paminta Barrion, Barrion-Dupo & Heong

Alberto T. Barrion, Aimee Lynn A. Barrion-Dupo, Josie Lynn A. Catindig, Sylvia C. Villareal, Ducheng Cai, Qianhua Yuan & Kong Luen Heong, 2016, NEW SPECIES OF SPIDERS (ARANEAE) FROM HAINAN ISLAND, CHINA, UPLB Museum Publications in Natural History 3, pp. 1-103 : 25-26

Phintella paminta Barrion, Barrion-Dupo & Heong , new species [ Figure 27 A-C]

FEMALE. Holotype female, total length 4.90 mm. Cephalothorax length 2.10 mm, width 1.65 mm. Abdomen length 2.60 mm, width 1.50 mm.

Carapace. Brown with black eye margins; orange ring on AME; whitish yellow ocular area forming an inverted V-band behind PLE; whitish clypeus, median thoracic and lateral margins of entire cephalothorax; 1.27x longer than wide. Chelicerae yellowish brown, retromargin unidentate and promargin bears two small teeth.Pedipalps, maxillae, labium and sternum yellow.

Eyes. In three rows of 4, 2, and 2. Eye diameter (mm): AME (0.46)> PLE (0.26)> ALE (0.23)> PME (0.07). PME slightly closer to ALE than to PLE. Clypeus height slightly narrower than one ALE, barely 0.43 AME diameter.

Legs. Yellow except brown spines and black claw tufts. Femur I and II with similar spination 3-0-1 -1; tibia I and II 0-6-2-3, tibia III 0-0-1-1, and tibia IV 0-3-3-3; metatarsus I 0-4-2-2, II 0-2-2-2, III 0-2-0-0, and IV 1-4 -3-3. Leg formula 4312.

Abdomen: Dorsally mottled brown with pale white median longitudinal band and a brown posterior spot, venter light brown, and about 1.73x longer than wide.

Epigynum bears a double convex anterior hood and a pair of rounded spermathecae below the hood.

MALE. Unknown.

Material Examined. Holotype female (coll. no. Dap 46), CHINA, Hainan Island, Dapo town, Dapo village, 25 March-9 April 2011, ATBarrion, JLACatindig and SCVillareal.

Diagnostic Features. This species runs close to Phintella popovi (Proszynski, 1979) and Phintella cavaleriei (Schenkel, 1963) but separated from both taxa by (1) double convex anterior hood of epigynum, (2) patella II as long as tarsus III, (3) tibia III and tarsus IV subequal, (4) color pattern in the cephalothorax and abdomen.

Etymology. Named after the habitat plant, Piper nigrum L. which. in Tagalog, is called paminta .