About Phiale guttata (C.L.Koch, 1846)
Phiale guttata (C.L.Koch, 1846) shows clear size differences between females and males. Females have a total body length of 11.70 mm. Their cephalothorax is 5.53 mm long, 4.47 mm wide, and 2.67 mm high, and their clypeus has a height of 0.23 mm. The chelicerae of females are strong, vertical, and parallel, with one tooth on the promargin and one tooth on the retromargin. Female coloration is variable: in specimens collected from Belem do Pará, the carapace stripes bear white hairs, and the fourth tarsus is black. Males are considerably smaller than females. A male’s cephalothorax measures 4.53 mm long, 3.73 mm wide, and 2.07 mm high, and the clypeus is 0.27 mm high. The male carapace is dark reddish brown covered with dark hairs, and has two broad marginal stripes with white hairs that run from opposite the posterior lateral eyes to the posterior legs. A central white spot sits on the thoracic groove of the male carapace. The male opisthosoma is brown with blackish brown hairs, and has distinctive patches covered in white hairs: these include a central row of four spots, plus additional markings on each side. Both sexes of Phiale guttata share the species’ characteristic eye arrangement: the small eyes of the second row are positioned closer to the anterior lateral eyes than to the posterior lateral eyes. This species has been recorded from Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Paraguay, and northern Argentina. Its type locality is Costa Rica.
