Diagnoses of genera of South East Asia: Long, mottled grey salticids, some flattish. Found on warm walls, rocks and tree trunks in the open. General remarks: Some salticids show a distinct preference for dry habitats, particularly those habitats which are warmed by the sun and, in cooler climates, even those warmed by domestic heating. It is not unusual to find Plexippus wandering about on the walls of a house. The legs of Plexippus which are stout and of roughly equal length, appear well suited for a cursorial lifestyle. Some other, well known members of this group, such as Afraflacilla [= Pseudicius], Pseudicius, Marpissa and Holoplatys are rather long and flat spiders, with legs I much longer and much more robust than the other legs. They have a much more specialised and restricted habitat. They often build retreats behind flakes of bark on a tree trunk (when investigating such habitats be sure to keep an open sweepnetjust below the flake). Overlapping flat wooden strips on sheds or fences also provide acceptable habitats. Suitable flakes of stone or niches on a warmed rockface are also used.
Genus: Flacillula. Two species of this small genus, F. albofrenata (Simon, 1905) from Java and F. incognita Zabka, 1985 from Vietnam, occur in south east Asia. For F. albofrenata, the cephalothorax is flat and long, roughly rectangular in plan, being about twice as long as broad. It is blackish in colour and coriaceous with a narrow line of white hairs along the margin and two dorsal lines of white hairs converging between the eyes at the front. The abdomen is long and narrow, truncated at the front and tapering at the rear. There are some broken black and white lines dorsally, with the sides pale and clothed with white hairs. The legs, in general, are yellow in colour. The femora, patellae and tibiae of the front legs are swollen. The front tibiae carries some strong spines ventrally, but there are no spines on the other legs. There are drawings of the type species, F. lubrica, in Simon, 1897. Distribution: Single species of Flacillula occur in India, Sri Lanka, Java, Vietnam and Samoa. Murphy & Murphy 2000: 317. By courtesy of the Authors' and the Malaysian Nature Society.