1935] 
A Rare Spider 
163 
A RARE SPIDER 
By Elizabeth B. Bryant 
Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, Mass. 
Among a collection of spiders from Dallas, Texas, sent 
to the Museum of Comparative Zoology this spring was a 
small spider which proved to be Prodidomus rufus Hentz, 
a species that has not been found for many years. 
Hentz found a single female (?) “in a large box in a dark 
cellar/’ August 10th. The arrangement of the eyes was 
so unusual that he made a new genus for it and placed it 
near Callopodia (= Hyptiotes). As far as known an adult 
has never been found since. In the summer of 1891 Mr. 
Banks found a few immature specimens in a house at 
Shreveport, Louisiana, and because they were so unusual 
he described and figured them in the Proc. Ent. Soc. Wash- 
ington, 1892, 2, p. 259, fig. 12. 
In 1918, Compte de Dalmas made a revision of the family 
Prodidomidse in the Ann. Soc. Ent. France, 87, pp. 279- 
340 with numerous figures. He had use of the large col- 
lection of M. Simon which contained most of the known 
species but Prodidomus rufus Hentz, the genotype, was 
known by the very brief original description and the one 
given by Mr. Banks for the immature specimens. Because 
of certain discrepancies Dalmas suggests that the two may 
be separate species. This is probably doubtful because the 
difference in color can easily be explained by age or gen- 
eral conditions, such as moisture and food and the size 
of the eyes by the inadequate facilities of lighting and 
magnification used by naturalists nearly a century ago. 
This specimen from Texas is adult and was found out 
of doors probably on the ground instead of in a house or 
cellar and the abdomen is only tinged with pink, not red 
as described by Hentz. It also differs in two characters 
from others in the genus, the a.m.e. are distinctly the 
largest of the eight, the fourth trochanter is no longer 
