Pisaboa Huber, 2000

Huber, Bernhard A. & Villarreal, Osvaldo, 2020, On Venezuelan pholcid spiders (Araneae, Pholcidae), European Journal of Taxonomy 718, pp. 1-317 : 212

Pisaboa Huber, 2000

Notes

The South American genus Pisaboa previously included four species, three of them in Peru and Bolivia (including the type species P. silvae Huber, 2000 ), one in Venezuela . The Venezuelan species P. laldea Huber, 2000 appeared isolated not only geographically but also morphologically in having a modified male sternum. Pisaboa marcuzzii ( Caporiacco, 1955) comb. nov. and the three newly described Venezuelan species below support the assignment of P. laldea to Pisaboa : for example, P. marcuzzii comb. nov. is almost indistinguishable from P. silvae in its male palp morphology, and it shares the modified male sternum with P. laldea ; P. fombonai Huber sp. nov. and P. lionzae Huber sp. nov. share the articulated male cheliceral apophyses with P. silvae and the modified male sternum with P. laldea . Our preliminary molecular data (J.J. Astrin, B.A. Huber, unpubl. data) also support the close relationship between P. silvae , P. marcuzzii comb. nov. and P. retracta Huber sp. nov. Collecting in Colombia will most likely show that the geographic gap is artificial.

One of the characters that were originally thought to be diagnostic ( Huber 2000) is not shared by P. marcuzzii comb. nov. and P. retracta Huber sp. nov.: articulated male cheliceral apophyses. All other diagnostic characters in Huber (2000) are shared by all known species: female internal genitalia with arched pore plates and membranous putative receptacle; long and slender procursus; male palpal femur with finger-shaped ventral apophysis.

Nothing has previously been known about the biology of species of Pisaboa . Data from recent expeditions document considerable microhabitat diversity. Two of the new species below were collected from leaf litter, the other three species in retreats among vegetation 0.5–2 m above the ground (see details below). At Tabatinga ( Brazil), we collected P. silvae from the extremely spiny stems of Tucumá trees ( Astrocaryum vulgare ), with the spiders and their small webs well protected at the bases of the long spines (B.A. Huber & L.S. Carvalho, unpubl. data).