Inthaeron longipes ( Gravely, 1931 ) Sankaran & Caleb & Sebastian, 2020

Sankaran, Pradeep M., Caleb, John T. D. & Sebastian, Pothalil A., 2020, A review of the genus Sphingius Thorell, 1890 from India (Araneae: Liocranidae), Zootaxa 4896 (4), pp. 505-522 : 515-518

Inthaeron longipes ( Gravely, 1931) comb. nov.

Figs 10–11

Sphingius longipes Gravely, 1931: 270 , fig. 19A–B; Majumder & Tikader, 1991: 148, figs 311–314.

Type material. Syntype Ƌ from INDIA: Kerala: Palakkad: Pattambi (formerly in Malabar district ): beside the traveller’s bungalow, leg. F.H. Gravely, 24–28 May 1930, deposited in NZC-ZSI (no register number), examined ( Fig. 10E ) .

Justification of the transfer. Detailed examination of the syntype of S. longipes Gravely, 1931 revealed that it has the typical somatic morphology for Cithaeronidae Simon, 1893 ( Fig. 10 A–D) and the diagnostic features of the monotypic cithaeronid genus Inthaeron Platnick, 1991 , as illustrated for Inthaeron rossi Platnick, 1991 , the type species of the genus: highly coiled embolus, and embolus with a fringed flange (compare Fig. 11 A–C with Platnick & Gajbe 1994: figs 1–3). Based on these observations, we propose to transfer S. longipes to Inthaeron .

Diagnosis. The male of I. longipes comb. nov. can be separated from the male of I. rossi by the following combination of features: broad retrolateral tibial apophysis (narrow in I. rossi ), fringed flange with a prolateral twist (fringed flange with retrolateral twist in I. rossi ) and absence of a median apophysis ( I. rossi with highly reduced median apophysis) (compare Figs 10F and 11 A–C with Platnick & Gajbe 1994: figs 1–3). Females can be separated from the females of I. rossi by an anteriorly oriented long, median tongue-like plate ( Fig. 10F ), which is absent in the latter species ( Gravely 1931; Platnick 1991: fig. 21).

Note. With the transfer of S. longipes , the total number of known Inthaeron species is increased to two, I. rossi and I. longipes comb. nov.; both species are known from both sexes.

Remarks. The ZSI collection has one glass bottle for this species labelled as “ Type ” (1513/18), containing a male specimen in good condition, with intact pedipalps. Gravely (1931) also described the female of this species ( Fig. 10F ), but we could not trace any female specimen in the collection.

Figures

FIGURE 10. Inthaeron longipes (Gravely, 1931) comb. nov., syntype Ƌ of Sphingius longipes Gravely, 1931. A habitus, dorsal. B eye group, dorsal. C endites, labium and sternum, ventral. D spinnerets, ventral. E labels from type bottle. F original illustrations adopted from Gravely (1931). Scale bars: A, 2 mm; B, 0.2 mm; C–D, 0.5 mm.

FIGURE 11. Inthaeron longipes (Gravely, 1931) comb. nov., left pedipalp of syntype Ƌ of Sphingius longipes Gravely, 1931.A prolateral. B ventral. C retrolateral. Abbreviations: E embolus, FF fringed flange, RTA retrolateral tibial apophysis. Scale bars: A–C, 0.5 mm.