Speocera violacea new species

Figs 6–8, map 1.

Type material. Male holotype from Ecuador, Cotopaxi Province, San Francisco de Las Pampas, Casa César Tapia (00.42415°S 78.95719°W), 1426m, 5 November 2013, sifting litter, C. Tapia (QCAZ). EXAMINED.

Other material examined. None.

Etymology. The specific epithet is a latin adjective meaning violet-colored.

Diagnosis. Males can be distinguished from all Speocera by their violet colored cephalic pattern (Fig. 6) and their hook-shaped embolus (Fig. 8).

Description. Male: Total length: 0.9; carapace length: 0.45; carapace width: 0.3.

PROSOMA: Carapace broadly oval; narrowing gradually anteriorly; shiny, light yellow with purplish pattern (Fig. 6); pars cephalica flat; fovea not visible. Sternum light yellow, strongly suffused with purplish color; as long as wide. Endites light yellow suffused with purplish tinge; labium light yellow suffused with purplish tinge; notch. Clypeus nearly vertical; very short, shorter than diameter of PME. Chelicerae light yellow; promargin with a series of six to seven teeth reaching the lamina; retromargin without denticles. EYES: Six contiguous eyes surrounded by black pigmentation; PME elongated oval; ALE rounded, smallest; PLE rounded, largest (Fig. 6). OPISTHOSOMA: Elongated oval; purplish color with median white stripe (Fig. 6); tracheal spiracle half way between epigastric furrow and spinnerets. LEGS: Light yellow; leg II-III missing; legs total length: I: 1.2; IV: 1.4. GENITALIA: Palpal femur long; palpal tibia with three dorsal and one retrolateral trichobothria (Fig. 7). Cymbium conical, without prolateral extension (Fig. 8). Bulb almost spherical (Figs 7, 8). Embolus elongated, hook-shaped with two associated sclerites: a small, curved and pointed one and a large, semi-transparent rounded one; sperm duct very large initially reducing to about five times its size (Figs 7, 8).

Female: Unknown.

Distribution. Ecuador: Cotopaxi Province.

Natural history. Collected in a low evergreen montane forest at an altitud of 1300m.