Ischnothyreus Simon

Platnick, Norman I., Dupérré, Nadine, Ubick, Darrell & Fannes, Wouter, 2012, The Goblin Spider Genus Ischnothyreus (Araneae, Oonopidae) in the New World, American Museum Novitates 2012 (3759), pp. 1-32 : 6-7

Ischnothyreus Simon

Ischnaspis Simon, 1891: 562 (type species by monotypy Ischnaspis peltifer Simon ); preoccupied in the

Hemiptera by Ischnaspis Douglas, 1887 . Ischnothyreus Simon, 1893a: 298 (replacement name for Ischnaspis Simon ). Ischnothyrella Saaristo, 2001: 348 (type species by original designation Ischnothyreus jivani Benoit ).

NEW SYNONYMY.

DIAGNOSIS: Specimens of Ischnothyreus resemble those of Camptoscaphiella and Malagiella in having long, strong spines on the anterior femora, tibiae, and metatarsi (figs. 77, 91), nearly contiguous eyes arranged in an almost circular pattern (fig. 4), an external copulatory opening on the postepigastric scutum of females (fig. 73), and (usually) a reduced dorsal scutum (figs. 76, 90). Males of Ischnothyreus are easily separated from those of Camptoscaphiella and Malagiella by their heavily sclerotized, “burnt” palps (figs. 77, 82, 104), which do not have the enlarged patellae characteristic of those two genera. Indeed, males are likely to be confused only with those of Brignolia , which also have heavily sclerotized, “burnt” palps but which lack leg spines and have flatter, more heavily sclerotized abdomens (see Platnick et al., 2011: figs. 6, 8). Most females of Ischnothyreus can be separated from those of Malagiella , and all those of Camptoscaphiella except C. paquini , by the highly “squiggled” posterior genitalic ducts (figs. 75, 96), but some undescribed species of Ischnothyreus have ducts that appear nearly straight, and we have not yet found any characters that will reliably separate such females. Females of Ischnothyreus could also be confused with those of Triaeris , which also have the bulk of the genitalia occupying the postepigastric scutum and often including somewhat sinuous posterior ducts, but which differ from members of Ischnothyreus in having a greatly elongated, spinose patella on leg I (see Platnick et al., 2012c).

DESCRIPTION: See Saaristo (2001: 345); a full description will not be possible until the many undescribed Old World species are studied in detail.

DISTRIBUTION: Ischnothyreus appears to be natively an Old World group. Numerous endemic species occur from West Africa to Yemen ( Saaristo and van Harten, 2006), Nepal ( Burger, 2010), China ( Tong and Li, 2008), Malaysia ( Kranz-Baltensperger, 2012), Japan, the Philippines, the Marshall Islands, and Borneo ( Kranz-Baltensperger, 2011) and, to the south, from Angola, Comoros, Madagascar, and Seychelles east to Australia ( Edward and Harvey, 2009), Fiji, and the Cook Islands. However, as detailed below, two of the Old World species have apparently attained pantropical distributions.

SYNONYMY: The male of I. jivani has the “burnt” palps, the associated skeletomuscular elements inside the carapace, the elevated carapace, and the retrolaterally twisted palpal resting position that are apparently synapomorphic for Ischnothyreus ; removal of that species to a separate genus apparently renders Ischnothyreus paraphyletic, and is therefore unacceptable.