Cheiracanthium rupicola ( Thorell, 1897 )

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 : 1309-1310

Cheiracanthium rupicola ( Thorell, 1897)

Eutittha rupicola Thorell, 1897, p. 253 (description of ♀ from MYANMAR: Kajin; L. Fea leg. 1885–1886).

Cheiracanthium rupicolum (Sic!): Dankittipakul & Beccaloni 2012, p. 82 , fig. 14 (♀).

Cheiracanthium rupicola: Liu et al. 2019, p. 317 , figs 1A–E, 2A–E, 3A–B (♂ ♀).

Chiracanthium (Sic!) gyirongense Hu & Li 1987, p. 306 , fig. 34.1–2 (♀, synonymised by Dankittipakul and Beccaloni 2012, p. 83).

Cheiracanthium gyirongense: Song et al. 1999, p. 413 , fig. 241Q– R (♀; after Hu and Li 1987) .

Cheiracanthium gyirongensis (Sic!): Hu 2001, p. 283, fig. 161.3–4 (♀; after Hu and Li 1987).

Chiracanthium (Sic!) trivialis: Gravely 1931, p. 265 , fig 17 J, K (♂ and Himalaya form ♀, misidentified after; Dankittipakul and Beccaloni 2012, p. 83).

Comments

Cheiracanthium rupicola was originally described from Kajin Division, Myanmar (= Burma) ( Thorell 1897). The history and difficulty of studying this species were covered by Dankittipakul and Beccaloni (2012) (see our comments on C. triviale as well). Currently, C. rupicola is well described and illustrated. It is distributed in the highlands of Myanmar, India and China (Tibet) ( Dankittipakul and Beccaloni 2012; Li et al. 2019).

Cheiracanthium rupicola is neither conspecific to the type species of Eutittha nor to the type species of Cheiracanthium . Together with C. incertum O. Pickard-Cambridge 1869 , C. triviale and, most likely, C. pauriense Majumder & Tikader, 1991 , these species comprise the incertum species group, which is characterised by the following combination of characters (after Dankittipakul and Beccaloni 2012; Li and Zhang 2019): (1) tegulum of male palp with membranous flange; (2) tibia of male palp with PTA, VTA, RTA and DTA; (3) whip-like embolus originates apically, runs along the margin of the tegular flange, and ends at the anterior margin of the tegular flange; (4) the strongly convoluted copulatory ducts of the endogyne which form 7–10 loops (4–5 in C. pauriense ); (5) spherical spermathecae.