Mendoza dersuuzalai

Mendoza spiders are medium-sized with the male and female being of similar size. The male Mendoza dersuuzalai has a cephalothorax that is between 2.53 and 2.88 mm (0.100 and 0.113 in) long, 1.8 and 2.05 mm (0.071 and 0.081 in) wide and 0.85 and 1.03 mm (0.033 and 0.041 in) high. Its carapace, the hard upper side of its cephalothorax, is dark brown and covered in a few thin dark hairs. Its eye field is darker, nearly black, and has many small dents in its surface. There are five white spots formed of hairs behind the eye field and a white band along the back of the carapace. There are a few small hairs near the spider's eyes. The underside of the cephalothorax, called the sternum, is also dark brown, as are the chelicerae, labium and maxillae. There are light edges on the side of the labium and maxillae and two teeth at the front of the chelicerae and one tooth at the rear. The male spider's abdomen is between 2.88 and 3.45 mm (0.136 in) long and between 1.45 and 1.7 mm (0.057 and 0.067 in) wide. The black upper surface has a bright golden sheen and a covering of thin dark hairs, the density of the hairs increasing towards the front. It has a pattern of eight white spots each surrounded by black rings. …

Mendoza are, along with Marpissa, the only marpissines that live in Afro-Eurasia, Mendoza spiders live in the palearctic realm, the majority of species being found in Japan and Manchuria. Mendoza dersuuzalai is endemic to Russia. The holotype was found in Khabarovsk Krai in 1987. It has also been observed living in the Khingan Nature Reserve in Amur Oblast. The species lives in meadows and damp places found in woods of aspen and larch. Although no examples have been found there, Logunov expects that the spider may also live in China.

Mendoza dersuuzalai is a species of jumping spider, a member of the family Salticidae, that was first described by the arachnologist Dmitri Logunov and Wanda Wesołowska in 1992. He initially allocated it to the genus Marpissa, first circumscribed by Carl Ludwig Koch in 1846. In 1999, Logunov published a work with that reassessed the genus along with the related genera Hyctia and Mendoza. In this, he moved all four species to Mendoza, which had been circumscribed by George and Elizabeth Peckham in 1894, and created a new combination of Mendoza dersuuzalai. Along with Marpissa, Mendoza is a member of the subtribe Marpissina in the tribe Dendryphantini. In 2017, Jerzy Prószyński placed the genus in a group named Hyllines, named after the genus Hyllus, with 39 other genera. The specific name recalls Dersu Uzala, mentioned by the author Vladimir Arsenyev, who is supposed to have died near the place where the species was first found.