Marchena

Marchena
Male Marchena minuta in Humboldt County, California
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Subphylum:	Chelicerata
Class:	Arachnida
Order:	Araneae
Infraorder:	Araneomorphae
Family:	Salticidae
Subfamily:	Salticinae
Genus:	Marchena
Species:	M. minuta
Binomial name
Marchena minuta (Peckham & Peckham, 1888)[1]

Marchena is a genus of jumping spiders only found in the United States. Its only described species, M. minuta,^[1] dwells on the barks of conifers along the west coast, especially California, Washington and Nevada.^[2]

It forms a monophyletic group with the genera Afraflacilla, Pseudicius and Festucula.^[3]

This species can easily be distinguished from others in its range by the tubercles on the first femur of its first legs.^[2] M. minuta has a body length of about 4 mm.

The genus name is probably derived from the Spanish city of Marchena, Seville.^{[citation needed]} As witnessed by other generic names, the describers had a habit of naming taxa after places unrelated to the species' distribution. The species name is Latin for "small, minute".

• Zabka, Marek & Gray, Michael R. (2002): Salticidae (Arachnida: Araneae) from Oriental, Australian and Pacific Regions, XVI. New Species of Grayenulla and Afraflacilla. Records of the Australian Museum 54: 269–274. PDF
• Platnick, Norman I. (2009): The world spider catalog, version 9.5. American Museum of Natural History.

• Awesome Spiders: Photographs of female and male
• Salticidae.org: Diagnostic drawings and distribution map of M. minuta