Cenotextricella Penney, 2007

Rix, Michael & Harvey, Mark, 2010, The spider family Micropholcommatidae (Arachnida: Araneae: Araneoidea): a relimitation and revision at the generic level, ZooKeys 36 (36), pp. 1-321 : 76

†Genus Cenotextricella Penney, 2007

Cenotextricella Penney, 2007 in Penney et al., 2007: 49 . Type species by original designation Cenotextricella simoni Penney, 2007 .

Distribution. Extinct. Known only from early Tertiary (lowermost Eocene) Paris amber.

Composition. Only the fossil species Cenotextricella simoni Penney, 2007 .

Taxonomic remarks. The amber fossil genus Cenotextricella , represented only by C. simoni from the lowermost Eocene Paris Basin of France, was described by Penney (2007) as a species possibly related to ‘ Textricella ’. This placement is tentatively followed here on the basis of what appears to be a retrolaterally-directed apophysis on the male pedipalpal patella, the presence of a dorsal scute on the male abdomen, and the presence of a possible conductor on the male pedipalp (all textricellin-like characters) ( Penney et al. 2007). Unfortunately, several key characters cannot be detected using the X-Ray Computed Tomography method utilised by Penney et al. (2007), e.g. the arrangement of spinneret spigots, and the presence or otherwise of glandular depressions on the carapace, peg teeth on the cheliceral promargin or cuticular sculpturing on the pedipalpal patella. The somatic gestalt of Cenotextricella is also not typically textricellin, and the affinities of this taxon remain unknown.