Hitobia meghalayensis ( Tikader & Gajbe, 1976 ) Sankaran & Caleb & Sebastian, 2021

Sankaran, Pradeep M., Caleb, John T. D. & Sebastian, Pothalil A., 2021, On the taxonomic validity of Indian ground spiders: IV. Genera Apodrassodes Vellard, 1924, Herpyllus Hentz, 1832 and Sergiolus Simon, 1892 (Araneae: Gnaphosidae), Journal of Natural History 54 (43 - 44), pp. 2839-2857 : 2848-2851

Hitobia meghalayensis ( Tikader & Gajbe, 1976) comb. nov. ( Figure 5 )

Sergiolus meghalayensis Tikader & Gajbe, 1976: 186 , figs 6–9 (♀). Tikader 1982: 449, figs 349–353 (♀).

Type material

Holotype female from INDIA: Meghalaya: Khasi Hills (25°35ʹ00.00ʹ’ N, 91°38ʹ00.00ʹ’ E; 1649 m alt), S. Biswas leg., 14 February 1973, repository NZC-ZSI, Kolkata (no register number), examined.

Justification of the transfer

Detailed examination of the type of S. meghalayensis revealed that it lacks diagnostic features of Sergiolus (see the previous paragraph on H. lamhetaghatensis ), but instead, it has all of the diagnostic features of Hitobia , as in the case of previous species (compare Figure 5 (b–d) with Kamura 1992, figs 11, 16, 20, 25). Moreover, this species has three cheliceral promarginal and one retromarginal teeth ( Tikader and Gajbe 1976), which is another diagnostic feature of Hitobia species ( Kamura 1992, figs 12, 21). Based on these observations, we propose to transfer S. meghalayensis to Hitobia .

Diagnosis

Females of H. meghalayensis comb. nov. are closely related to the females of Hitobia menglong Song, Zhu & Zhang, 2004 as both share inverted droplet-shaped spermathecae, but can be separated from the latter by W-shaped posterior epigynal margin (which is crescent-like in H. menglong ) (compare Figure 5 (c–d) with Song et al. 2004, figs 87H–I).

Supplementary description

Female (holotype, Figure 5 (a–b)). Body length 9.78. Prosoma length 3.73, width 2.74. Opisthosoma length 6.05, width 3.64. Eye sizes and interdistances: ALE 0.12. AME 0.10. PLE 0.13. PME 0.11; AME–AME 0.09. AME–PME 0.18. PME–PLE 0.15. PME–PME 0.16. Length of chelicerae 1.12. Clypeus height at ALEs 0.11, at AMEs 0.16. Epigyne ( Figure 5 (c–d)): epigynal plate sclerotised, roughly diamond-shaped, with diagonally oriented posterolateral sclerotised margins and W-shaped posterior epigynal margin ( Figure 5 (c)). Spermathecae large sac-like ( Figure 5 (d)). Fertilisation ducts narrow, diverging.

Male. Unknown.

Remarks

The ZSI collection has one glass bottle for this species labelled as ‘holotype’ (5045/18) containing a female specimen in poor condition. The same bottle has a small glass vial containing the dissected epigyne.

Figures

Figure 5. Hitobia meghalayensis comb. nov., female holotype of Sergiolus meghalayensis (NZC-ZSI -5045/18). (a) habitus, dorsal view. (b) eyes, dorsal view. (c) epigyne, ventral view. (d) same, dorsal view. (e) label from type bottle. Scale bars a = 2 mm; b = 0.5 mm; c–d = 0.2 mm.