Anasaitis Bryant, 1950

Zhang, Jun-Xia & Maddison, Wayne P., 2012, New euophryine jumping spiders from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico (Araneae: Salticidae: Euophryinae), Zootaxa 3476, pp. 1-54 : 13

Genus Anasaitis Bryant, 1950

Small to medium sized, usually with iridescent scales. They are mainly ground dwellers and can be found in leaf litter, on rocks or in grass clumps. Chelicera usually has one bicuspid promarginal tooth and one retromarginal tooth. First tibia usually has three pairs of ventral macrosetae; first metatarsus has two pairs. Embolus usually is very short and not coiled. Tegulum usually has distinct proximal lobe. Epigynum usually lacks obvious window. Copulatory duct is short. Spermatheca is swollen. As indicated by Bryant (1950: 169), this genus is probably close to Corythalia C. L. Koch and can be distinguished from it mainly by the genitalic structure: the embolus of the male palp is usually short with the spiral highly reduced, and the female epigynum usually lacks a distinct window. The reduced embolic spiral is also seen in Soesilarishius Makhan 2007 (see Ruiz 2011) and Popcornella , both of which are small leaf-litter dwelling euophryines, with Soesilarishius found in South America and Popcornella endemic to Caribbean. Anasaitis can be distinguished from Soesilarishius by the presence of iridescent scales on the body and the highly reduced copulatory duct. It differs from Popcornella in the hairy appearance, the presence of iridescent scales on the body, and the extremely short embolus of the male palp. Unpublished molecular data also suggest that Anasaitis , Soesilarishius and Popcornella fall into three distinct clades and the reduced embolic spiral may have evolved independently in these genera.

Five species have been recorded from the Caribbean Islands and USA ( Platnick 2011). Some other Caribbean species presently placed in Corythalia undoubtedly belong in Anasaitis instead based on their genitalic structures. Four new species from the Dominican Republic are described here.