Cheiracanthium adjacensoides Song, Chen & Hou, 1990

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 : 1313-1314

Cheiracanthium adjacensoides Song, Chen & Hou, 1990 , stat. resurr.

Chiracanthium (Sic!) adjacensoides Song et al., 1990, p. 427 , figs 1–4 (description of holotype ♀, allotype ♂ from CHINA: Chongqing (29°5 ʹ N, 106°5 ʹ E); IX .1983 ; paratypes 1 ♂ 1 ♀ from CHINA: Chongqing (29°3 ʹ N, 105°9 ʹ E); VIII .1981 ; paratype ♂ from CHINA: Sichuan Province: Miyi County (26°8 ʹ N, 102°1 ʹ E); VIII .1980 ; paratype ♀ from CHINA: Sichuan Province: Chengdu City (30°6 ʹ N, 104°1 ʹ E); IX .1980 ; paratype ♀ from CHINA: Sichuan Province: Junlian County (28°1 ʹ N, 104°5 ʹ E); VI .1980 ; and paratypes 2 ♀ from CHINA: Anhui Province: Xuancheng City (30°9 ʹ N, 118°7 ʹ E); VI.1980. Chen and Huang 2004, p. 56, synonymy of C. adjacensoides with C. insulanum ; here rejected). Song et al. 1999: 412, figs 241E–F, 243 C–D (♂ ♀; after Song et al. 1990); Yin et al. 2012, p. 1044, figs 542a–e (♂ ♀).

Chiracanthium (Sic!) paradjacens Chen & Gao, 1990, p. 148 , figs 186a–d (figs identical to figs 1–4 in Song et al. (1990) for C. adjacensoides ) (♂ ♀, recognised as nomen nudum by Song et al. 1999, p. 412).

Cheiracanthium payateus Barrion & Litsinger, 1995, p. 156 , figs 87a–h (description of holotype ♂, from PHILIPPINES: Palawan Island (9°40 ʹ 33”N, 118°42 ʹ 50”E); A.T. Barrion leg. 27.IX.1987); Deeleman-Reinhold 2001, p. 228 (synonymised with C. insulanum ; here rejected). Syn . nov.

Cheiracanthium tingilium Barrion & Litsinger, 1995, p. 164 , figs 93a–e (description of holotype ♀ from PHILIPPINES: Mindanao Island (18°36 ʹ N, 121°05 ʹ E), A.T. Barrion leg. 23. IX.1987). Deeleman-Reinhold 2001, p. 228 (synonymised with C. insulanum ; here rejected). Syn . nov.

Cheiracanthium bikakapenalcolium Barrion & Litsinger, 1995, p. 165 , figs 94a–e (description of holotype ♀ from PHILIPPINES: Palawan Island (9°40 ʹ 33”N, 118° 42 ʹ 50”E), A.T. Barrion leg. 29.IX.1987). Deeleman-Reinhold 2001, p. 228 (synonymised with C. insulanum ; here rejected). Syn . nov.

Cheiracanthium hugiscium Barrion & Litsinger, 1995, p. 167 , figs 95a–e (description of holotype ♀ from PHILIPPINES: Palawan Island (8°47 ʹ N, 117°50 ʹ E), A.T. Barrion leg. 21. VI.1984). Deeleman-Reinhold 2001, p. 228 (synonymised with C. insulanum ; here rejected). Syn . nov.

Cheiracanthium insulanum (nec Thorell): Deeleman-Reinhold 2001, p. 228, figs 272–279 (♂ ♀; misidentification); Chen and Huang 2004, p. 56, figs 1A–D, 2A–C (♂ ♀; misidentification); Jäger and Dankittipakul 2010, p. 24 , figs 1–3 (♀; misidentification); Zhu and Zhang 2011, p. 340, figs 245A–D (♂ ♀; misidentification); Chen and Huang 2012: 19, figs 5A–F, Pl. 2A–B (♂ ♀; after Chen and Huang 2004 misidentification); Hu et al. 2019, p. 33, fig. 1(a–f) (♂ ♀; misidentification).

Comments

The research history on this species is full of misunderstandings. Cheiracanthium adjacensoides was originally described from Sichuan and Anhui provinces, China ( Song et al. 1990) from both sexes. In the same year, another species, namely Cheiracanthium paradjacens Chen & Gao, 1990 , was described by using the same (identical) illustrations as those in Song et al. (1990). Cheiracanthium paradjacens was later recognised as nomen nudum by Song et al. (1999).

Deeleman-Reinhold (2001), having examined a series of Cheiracanthium specimens from Maluku Islands (= Moluccas; type locality of E. insulana ) and other regions of Indonesia, as well as Burma, Thailand and Philippines, came to the conclusion that these specimens are conspecific to E. insulana and that ‘each of the five species described recently by Barrion and Litsinger from the Philippines... agrees in genital organs, dark head and chelicerae, presence of a thoracic line and other features with C. insulanum and are considered to be new synonymies’ ( Deeleman-Reinhold 2001, p. 228). According to the results of the present study, this conclusion is erroneous. We agree with Deeleman-Reinhold (2001) that four species described by Barrion and Litsinger from the Philippines, namely C. bikakapenalcolium , C. hugiscium , C. payateus and C. tingilium , are very similar to C. adjacensoides . Here we remove these four species from the synonymy of C. insulanum and synonymise them with C. adjacensoides . We do not follow Deeleman-Reinhold (2001, p. 228) on the identity of Cheiracanthium tigbauaensis Barrion & Litsinger, 1995 and С. adjacensoides .

Chen and Huang, who examined a series of Cheiracanthium specimens from Taiwan, found that ‘original description and figures of Cheiracanthium adjacensoides by Song et al. (1990) from Mainland China agree with all diagnostic characters of C. insulanum ’ as described by Deeleman-Reinhold and synonymised C. adjacensoides with C. insulanum ( Chen & Huang 2004, p. 56) . So they duplicated the mistake made by Deeleman-Reinhold.

Thus, C. adjacensoides , under the name C. insulanum , has been repeatedly collected and is well described and illustrated. It is widespread in southeast Asia, ‘apparently in areas with seasonal rain or monsoon’, where it inhabits the ‘light forest, all sorts of vegetation’ ( Deeleman-Reinhold 2001, p. 230).