The oldest record of the true short-legged daddy-long-leg spider <italic>Pholcophora</italic> (Araneae: Pholcidae: ninetinae) from Mexican amber.

Pholcid spiders have been recorded from Chinese, Baltic, Dominican, Bitterfeld and Mexican amber. <italic>Pholcophora</italic> Banks, 1896 is a short-legged daddy-long-leg pholcid spider genus, not previously known from Mexican amber. In this study, we describe <italic>Pholcophora gregorioi</italic> sp. nov. based on an adult male specimen found in a piece of amber from Simojovel de Allende town, Chiapas, Mexico. <italic>Pholcophora gregorioi</italic> nov. sp. can be distinguished from all male <italic>Pholcophora</italic> by the small size, the distal process, the shape and position of the apophysis, the shape of the procursus and the shape of male cheliceral apophyses. Therefore, <italic>P</italic>. <italic>gregorioi</italic> sp. nov. is the first and oldest fossil that can be assigned unequivocally to <italic>Pholcophora</italic> worldwide. So far, no true extant <italic>Pholcophora</italic> species have been recorded in the modern state of Chiapas. The fossil species <italic>Pholcophora gregorioi</italic> nov. sp. lived in a leguminous forest that developed near an ancient estuarine environments during the early Miocene (23 Ma). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]