Genus Chaleponcus Attems, 1914

Type species

Chaleponcus limbatus Attems, 1914 (Namibia), by subsequent designation of Kraus (1960).

Other included species

Fourty-seven, including five species described as new here, see Kraus (1960, 1966), Frederiksen (2013a), Vohland & Hamer (2013), Enghoff (2014, 2017).

Diagnosis (modified from Enghoff 2014)

Differs from other genera of Prionopetalini by the combination of the following characters: proplica and metaplica of gonopod coxa coming together apically and forming a hoodlike cucullus; solenomere long and whiplike, at least twice as long as telomere if stretched out, not spiraled terminally; solenomere without accessory branches or outgrowths (except for sometimes at the very base); telomere proximally folded like a tube or a trough and distally dividing into two or three diverging lamellae.

Remarks

About half of the described species occur in southern Africa as far north as Zimbabwe and southern Mozambique (Enghoff 2014). Further north, the genus is represented in the Eastern Arc by C. parensis Frederiksen, 2013, five new species described here and, notably, by the the Chaleponcus dabagaensis group with 21 species in the Udzungwa Mts and C. altirungwensis Enghoff, 2017 from Mt. Rungwe (Enghoff 2014, 2017).

Chaleponcus schioetzae sp. nov. and C. soerensenae sp. nov., both from the Uluguru Mts, are very similar, sharing among other things a large metaplical palette; they could be placed in a separate species group, the C. schioetzae group, see remarks under C. schioetzae sp. nov. below.