Stenaelurillus specularis

The spider is small. The male has a cephalothorax that measures between 2.4 and 2.8 mm (0.094 and 0.110 in) in length and between 1.9 and 2.0 mm (0.075 and 0.079 in) in width. The brown carapace is hairy and slightly pear-shaped. It has two white streaks that cross the main part of the body and wide white bands around the margins. The abdomen is oval, black and hairy, between 2.6 and 3.2 mm (0.10 and 0.13 in) long and 1.8 and 1.9 mm (0.071 and 0.075 in) wide, and has a shiny spot that is marked by two patches of non-shiny black. This shiny patch is the most distinguishing feature of the spider. The eye field is black and is surrounded by long brown bristles. The spinnerets are black, and the legs are yellow. The pedipalps are light and hairy and similar to Stenaelurillus darwini but differs in the shape of palpal bulb, having a shorter lobe shape at the rear.^[7] The embolus is short. The spider can be distinguished from the similar Stenaelurillus tettu by the narrow and bent projection from the palpal bulb.^[8]

The female is similar to the male in size and shape. It has an cephalothorax 2.1 mm (0.083 in) long and 2.1 mm (0.083 in) wide and an abdomen 3.0 in (76 mm) long and 2.2 mm (0.087 in) wide. The carapace is also pear-shaped and coloured similarly, but the abdomen has a large triangular area of white similar to other species in the genus.^[7] The spinnerets are light and legs yellow-orange. The epigyne is short, wide and has two large oval copulatory openings.^[9] Due to the lack of the abdomen's shiny patch, it is the design of the epigyne that most distinguishes the female of the species from other members of the genus.^[7]

The species was first identified in the Viphya Mountains of Malawi based on examples found in 1978.^[10] It is endemic to the country.^[11]