Three pairs of humps line the back of its abdomen.
The male and female have a dark reddish-brown head and thorax and ringed legs.
Zephyrarchaea janineae has a raised rear part of the head and a depression in front of it. In the described male and female, the carapace is taller than it is long, rising above a narrow neck-like region.
Living adults were found in Karri Valley, Western Australia, in August 2006. The original male and female specimens were collected by Michael Rix and Janine Wojcieszek. The name janineae honours Dr Wojcieszek’s contribution to the discovery, which helped catalyse the Western Australian Museum’s subsequent archaeid project.
Alongside body form, the 2012 paper used DNA from eleven individuals as an identification aid. Comparison with the other genotyped taxa revealed three COI sequence differences shared uniquely by this species in that comparison. These molecular characters complemented the external and reproductive structures used to recognise it.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
The 2012 description considered the species relatively widespread in several national parks and state forests and did not regard it as a conservation concern at that time. The Western Australian recovery team’s report for the same year likewise stated, following museum researchers’ review, that its broad distribution did not warrant nomination for threatened status. Checking habitat condition and continued occurrence across these forests could help inform its conservation.