page_title: Zygoballus sexpunctatus
section_title: History and taxonomy
hierarchical_section_title: Zygoballus sexpunctatus / History and taxonomy
caption_attribution_description: Hentz's original drawing of Attus sexpunctatus (now Zygoballus sexpunctatus)
context_page_description: Zygoballus sexpunctatus is a species of jumping spider which occurs in the southeastern United States where it can be found in a variety of grassy habitats. Adult spiders measure between 3 and 4.5 mm in length. The cephalothorax and abdomen are bronze to black in color, with reddish brown or yellowish legs. The male has distinctive enlarged chelicerae and front femora. Like many jumping spiders, Z. sexpunctatus males exhibit ritualized courtship and agonistic behavior.
context_section_description: The species was first described by entomologist Nicholas Marcellus Hentz in 1845 in the Boston Journal of Natural History. Hentz named the species Attus sexpunctatus and described it as follows:
  "Black; cephalothorax with the two posterior eyes near the base, which is wide and suddenly inclined at nearly a right angle with the upper surface, cheliceres with a strong inner tooth, and a long, curved fang; abdomen with six dots, and a line in front, white; feet, 1. 4. 2. 3., first pair with enlarged thighs and quite long."
  Hentz classified A. sexpunctatus in the subgeneric group Pugnatoriae, which consisted of jumping spiders whose first pair of legs were the longest, followed by the fourth pair. Later entomologists abandoned this classification, which Hentz himself admitted was "somewhat artificial". In 1888, with the recognition of Zygoballus as an independent genus, American arachnologists George and Elizabeth Peckham renamed the spider Zygoballus sexpunctatus. Specimens of Z. sexpunctatus are housed at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, the British Museum, the Milwaukee Public Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. No type specimens are known.
  The genus Zygoballus contains approximately twenty species distributed from the United States to Argentina. Zygoballus is classified in the subfamily Dendryphantinae of the family Salticidae (jumping spiders).
caption: Hentz's original figure of the male
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