World Spider Catalog

Genus: Heliophanus C. L. Koch, 1833 | Family: Salticidae Blackwall, 1841

Heliophanus pygmaeus Wesołowska & Russell-Smith, 2000

SPECIES | ACCEPTED

LSID: urn:lsid:nmbe.ch:spidersp:033851

Permalink: https://wsc.nmbe.ch/lsid/urn:lsid:nmbe.ch:spidersp:033851

Described:

Distribution: Senegal, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa

External Resources*: Jumping Spiders of the World Metzner (2026) | Salticidae Database Prószyński (2025) | GBIF

Type Repository Provide information

Holotype: Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale, Tervuren (MRAC/RMCA), Belgium m (207974) - (Wesołowska & Russell-Smith, 2000)
Paratype: Antony Russell-Smith Private Collection, Sittingbourne, UK 2m - (Wesołowska & Russell-Smith, 2000)

Taxonomic References

Heliophanus pygmaeus Wesołowska & Russell-Smith, 2000: 36, f. 73-76 (Dm) Original description

Xuriella prima Wesołowska & Russell-Smith, 2000: 115, f. 322-325 (f; misidentified per Wesołowska, 2004b: 277)

Heliophanus pygmaeus Wesołowska, 2004b: 277, f. 1-13 (mf)

Heliophanus pygmaeus Wesołowska & Cumming, 2008: 184, f. 50-51 (f)

Heliophanus pygmaeus Dippenaar-Schoeman et al., 2025c: 42, f. 1-6 (mf)

References

Dippenaar-Schoeman, A. S., Walt, V. van der, Haddad, C. R., Foord, S. H. & Lotz, L. N. (2025c). The Salticidae of South Africa. Part 3 (He-Iran). Version 1. South African National Survey of Arachnida Photo Identification Guide, Irene, 74 pp. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.17103454 -- Show included taxa

Wesołowska, W. & Russell-Smith, A. (2000). Jumping spiders from Mkomazi Game Reserve in Tanzania (Araneae Salticidae). Tropical Zoology 13(1): 11-127. doi: 10.1080/03946975.2000.10531126 -- Show included taxa

Wesołowska, W. (2004b). A redescription of Heliophanus pygmaeus Wesolowska et Russell-Smith, 2000, a small beetle-like salticid from Africa (Araneae: Salticidae). Genus 15: 275-280. -- Show included taxa

Wesołowska, W. & Cumming, M. S. (2008). Taxonomy and natural history of a species rich assemblage of jumping spiders (Araneae: Salticidae); a long-term study of a suburban site in Zimbabwe. Annales Zoologici, Warszawa 58: 167-230. -- Show included taxa

External Resource References

* Disclaimer
As External Resources, the World Spider Catalog links here to species pages of other databases. They may contain further information for the given species. The databases, listed as External Resources, however, are not managed by World Spider Catalog and the information given there is not necessarily in agreement with the World Spider Catalog. All responsibility for such data is with the external database.

Metzner, H. (2026). Jumping spiders (Arachnida: Araneae: Salticidae) of the world. Online at https://www.jumping-spiders.com.

Prószyński, J. (2025). Salticidae (Araneae) Genera of the World "a management tool for developing a new system of Salticidae" - a scrollable e-Textbook. Version December 20th, 2025, online at http://www.salticidae.pl.

GBIF.org (2026). GBIF Home Page (via GBIF API). Available from: https://www.gbif.org [8 January 2026]

Edit History

Date	Type	Reference	Old value	Comment
2025-09-13	New taxonomic reference entry	Dippenaar-Schoeman et al., 2025c
2024-12-30	Species distribution update	Haddad, Wiśniewski & Wesołowska, 2024	Old value