Haploclastus devamatha Prasanth & Jose, 2014

Sankaran, Pradeep M. & Sebastian, Pothalil A., 2018, A new synonym in the subfamily Thrigmopoeinae Pocock, 1900 (Araneae, Theraphosidae), ZooKeys 749, pp. 81-86 : 81-83

Haploclastus devamatha Prasanth & Jose, 2014 Figs 1 A–D, 2 A–B, 3

Haploclastus devamatha Prasanth & Jose, 2014: 495, figs 1, 2 A–I, 3 A–D, 4 A–D (Description and illustration of female).

Thrigmopoeus psychedelicus Sanap & Mirza, 2014: 481, figs 1, 2 a–d, 3 a–c, 3e, 4 (Misidentification; description and illustration of female). New synonym.

Type material.

Holotype female of H. devamatha (DMCK 13/110) from INDIA: Kerala: Kollam: Kulathupuzha Forest Reserve, 8°54'6.37"N, 77°3'51.70"E, 134 m alt., Prasanth M. T. & Sunil Jose K. leg., 31 July 2013, repository Deva Matha College, Kuravilangad, Kerala (DMCK), not examined. Paratype female collected together with the holotype deposited in the reference collection of Sacred Heart College, Thevara (ADSH101501), examined.

Holotype female of T. psychedelicus (BNHS SP115) from INDIA: Kerala: Kollam: near Thenmala: Ambanad Tea Estate, 9°2'18"N, 77°5'22"E, 561 m alt., Rajesh Sanap, Zeeshan Mirza & Karthik Prabhu leg., 22 December 2013, repository Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai, (BNHS), not examined.

Other material examined.

INDIA, Kerala: Kollam: Thenmala, 8°57'30.7"N, 77°10'38.9"E, 567 m alt., 10 January 2015, M. S. Pradeep leg., from burrows on mud embankment, by hand: 2 females (ADSH101502) (NEW RECORD); Kulathupuzha Forest Reserve, 8°54'6.37"N, 77°3'51.70"E, 134 m alt., 11 January 2015, M. S. Pradeep leg., from burrows on mud embankment and forest floor, by hand: 4 females, 3 subadult females (ADSH101503).

Description.

For description and other details of the species, see Sanap and Mirza (2014).

Justification of the synonymy.

Although the types of T. psychedelicus were not examined, good illustrations and images of this species are available ( Sanap and Mirza 2014: figs 1, 2 a–d, 3 a–e). In the original description of H. devamatha , Prasanth and Jose (2014) pointed out several diagnostic somatic features for this species. The first and most important diagnostic character refers to the body colouration of this species, which has iridescent blue and pink colouration. Sanap and Mirza (2014) also noted the same body colouration for T. psychedelicus (compare Prasanth and Jose 2014: fig. 1 with Sanap and Mirza 2014: fig. 4). The original illustrations of cheliceral and maxillary lyrae of T. psychedelicus are exact matches with the colour photographs of the same provided for H. devamatha by Prasanth and Jose (2014) (compare Sanap and Mirza 2014: fig. 3 a–c with Prasanth and Jose 2014: figs 3B, 3D, 4 A–B). Though the spermathecae of H. devamatha ( Prasanth and Jose 2014: fig. 2F) seem quite different from that of T. psychedelicus , detailed examination of the paratype and topotypes of H. devamatha reveals that their illustration is imperfect and misleading, and that both these specimens indeed belong to the same species. The species T. psychedelicus should thus be regarded as a junior synonym of H. devamatha .

Note.

Prasanth and Jose published their findings in January 2014, whereas Sanap and Mirza published their discovery in July 2014, so priority must go to the name Haploclastus devamatha and the name Thrigmopoeus psychedelicus becomes its junior synonym.

Distribution.

India (Kerala: Kollam, Pathanamthitta) (Fig. 3).

Polychromatism.

Females of H. devamatha are remarkable for their polychromatism ( Sanap and Mirza 2014). Two distinct colour forms have been observed in the population of H. devamatha : a 'pink form’ with bluish prosoma and pinkish opisthosoma and the 'blue form’ with uniform bluish black prosoma and opisthosoma (Fig. 1 A–B). Perhaps this change in colour is related to the age of the spider as suggested by Sanap and Mirza (2014), but confirmation requires further investigations.

Natural history and conservation.

Haploclastus devamatha builds unbranched burrows lined with silk. The burrows have single entrance, which is a circular opening ornamented with dried leaves pasted together using silk to form a short turret (Fig. 1D). As noted by Sanap and Mirza (2014), the burrows are found to occur on the roadside mud embankments inside and nearby regions of the forests at a height of 1-6 metres from the ground (Fig. 1C). Rarely, adult burrows are observed on the forest floors. In the Thenmala and Kulathupuzha regions, we were able to locate a large number of juvenile and subadult burrows that are built on the roadside mud embankments. Within a stretch of 2 kilometres in the Thenmala region, 110 burrows were observed and at a stretch of 1.5 kilometres in the Kulathupuzha region, 52 burrows were found. The tendency of this species to build its burrows predominantly on the roadside mud embankments points to the fact that its survival is under threat due to the common anthropogenic activities like soil removal from the mud embankments and burning dried leaves gathered together near the mud embankments.