Nops branicki ( Taczanowski, 1874 )

Sánchez-Ruiz, Alexander & Brescovit, Antonio D., 2018, A revision of the Neotropical spider genus Nops MacLeay (Araneae: Caponiidae) with the first phylogenetic hypothesis for the Nopinae genera, Zootaxa 4427 (1), pp. 1-121 : 112

Nops branicki ( Taczanowski, 1874)

Diops branickii Taczanowski, 1874: 73 , pl. 2, fig. 2. Female holotype from Cayenne, French Guyana (no more data), (depository unknown; not examined). Hasselt, 1887: 85, pl. 6, figs 5–6. Petrunkevitch, 1911: 133. Roewer, 1942: 316.

Nops branicki: Bonnet, 1956: 1475 (emendation of N. branickii ).

Remarks. The holotype is apparently lost. The World Spider Catalog (2018) records male and female as known, but actually Taczanowski only described a unique female (see Taczanowski, 1874, p. 19). Hasselt (1887) also only made reference to the female described by Taczanowski, and argued that it could be an immature male (see Hasselt, 1887: p.77). He suggested to transfer it to the genus Nops by the number and position of the eyes. Hasselt also suggested the possibility that Diops branickii is synonymous with Nops variabilis: Même il me semble, que la Diops branickii Tacz. n ′est qu ′un individu bien jeune de la Nops variabilis Keys. (see Hasselt, 1887, p. 84). Petrunkevitch (1911) in his catalogue, apparently without examining the specimen involved, only accepted Hasselt´s first suggestion, and transferred Diops branickii to Nops . During this study no additional material was located.