Eutittha stratiotica (L. Koch 1873 ) Esyunin & Zamani, 2020

Esyunin, Sergei L. & Zamani, Alireza, 2020, ‘ Conundrum of esoterica’: on the long-forgotten genus Eutittha Thorell, 1878, with new taxonomic considerations in Cheiracanthium C. L. Koch, 1839 (Araneae: Cheiracanthiidae), Journal of Natural History (J. Nat. Hist.) 54 (19 - 20), pp. 1293-1323 : 1303

Eutittha stratiotica (L. Koch 1873) , comb. nov.

Cheiracanthium stratioticum L. Koch, 1873, p. 408 , pl. 32, figs 3–4 (description of syntypes ♂ from AUSTRALIA: suburb of Melbourne: Canterbury (37.825°S, 145.078°E) and 2 ♀ from NEW ZEALAND: North Island : Waikato (37°30’S, 175°20 ʹ E) and Auckland (36°50 ʹ 26 ″ S, 174°44 ʹ 24 ″ E )) . Hickman 1967, p. 94, figs 161–162 (♂ ♀); Forster 1979, p. 92, figs 23, 352–356 (♂ ♀); Paquin et al. 2010, p. 89, fig. 54.1–4 (♂ ♀).

Comments

This is ‘the single species found in New Zealand’ ( Forster 1979, p. 93) where it ‘usually lives in open habitats’ ( Paquin et al. 2010, p. 89). It has been well redescribed and illustrated by Forster (1979). Eutittha stratiotica is very similar to E. mordax in size and body colour as well as the structure of the palp and epigyne. Differences in eye sizes and leg chaetotaxy are probably the most important characteristics ( Dondale 1966; Forster 1979): AME subequal to ALE, but 1.5 times larger than PME = PLE in E. stratiotica , vs. the eyes are subequal in E. mordax ; femur and tibia I without spines in E. stratiotica , vs. ‘femur I with... 1 spiniform (on prolateral surface); tibia I with 2 pairs of ventral spiniforms’ ( Dondale 1966, p. 1180). In addition, Dondale (1966) and Forster (1979) illustrated the tip of the cymbium of male palp in different ways: the tip of cymbium is uniformly rounded in E. mordax ( Dondale, 1966: fig. 6H), while it has a distinct retrolateral depression in E. stratiotica ( Forster 1979: fig. 353). However, in the photograph of the male palp of E. mordax from French Polynesia ( Dierkens and Ramage 2016: fig. 12), the tip of the cymbium has a slight depression similar to that of E. stratiotica . Outside New Zealand, E. stratiotica has been recorded in Tasmania ( Hickman 1967) and southeast Australia ( Koch 1873).