Zelotes calcuttaensis ( Biswas, 1984 ) Sankaran & Caleb & Sebastian, 2021

Sankaran, Pradeep M., Caleb, John T. D. & Sebastian, Pothalil A., 2021, On the taxonomic validity of Indian ground spiders: IV. Genera Apodrassodes Vellard, 1924, Herpyllus Hentz, 1832 and Sergiolus Simon, 1892 (Araneae: Gnaphosidae), Journal of Natural History 54 (43 - 44), pp. 2839-2857 : 2844-2846

Zelotes calcuttaensis ( Biswas, 1984) comb. nov. ( Figure 4 )

Herpyllus calcuttaensis Biswas, 1984: 123 , figs 7–10 (♀). Type material

Holotype female from INDIA: West Bengal: Kolkata (=Calcutta): Alipore: Zoological garden (22°32ʹ12.91ʹ’ N, 88°19ʹ53.97ʹ’ E; 11 m alt), 1 September 1982; Bijan Biswas leg., repository NZC-ZSI, Kolkata (5116/18), examined.

Justification of the transfer

The study of the holotype of H. calcuttaensis revealed that it lacks diagnostic features of Herpyllus as mentioned above, but is a zelotine with preening combs in tibiae III and IV and has resemblances with the genus Zelotes Gistel, 1848 as illustrated for Zelotes subterraneus (C. L. Koch, 1833) , the type species of the genus: epigyne with anterior, lateral and posterior margins and globular spermathecae consisting of median, blind paramedian and lateral ducts (compare Figure 4 (b–c) with Platnick and Shadab 1983, figs 4–5). Considering these observations, we propose to transfer H. calcuttaensis to Zelotes .

Diagnosis

Females of Z. calcuttaensis comb. nov. seem closely related to the females of Zelotes shaked Levy, 1998 as both have a narrow continuous anterior epigynal margin and epigynal plate with a median longitudinal depression, but can be distinguished from the latter by long, highly coiled internal ducts (which are short and less coiled in Z. shaked ) (compare Figure 4 (b–c) with Levy 2009, figs 83–84).

Supplementary description

Female (holotype, Figure 4 (a)). Body length 5.94. Prosoma length 2.74, width 2.15. Opisthosoma length 3.20, width 2.13. Eye sizes and interdistances: ALE 0.12. AME 0.08. PLE 0.10. PME 0.08; AME–AME 0.05. AME–PME 0.10. PME–PLE 0.06. PME–PME 0.08. Length of chelicerae 1.01. Measurements of palp: 2.60 [1.01, 0.51, 0.42, 0.66]. Epigyne ( Figure 4 (b–c)): anterior epigynal margin narrow, continuous; median depression long with parallel sides and blunt base ( Figure 4 (b)). Median copulatory ducts obliquely placed with basal twist; blind paramedian copulatory ducts lying perpendicular to median ducts; lateral copulatory ducts concave ( Figure 4 (c)). Fertilisation ducts narrow, diverging.

Male. Unknown.

Remarks

The ZSI collection has one glass bottle for this species labelled as ‘holotype’ (5116/18) containing a female specimen with broken legs; otherwise, it is in good condition. The same bottle has a small glass vial containing the dissected epigyne.

Figures

Figure 4. Zelotes calcuttaensis comb. nov., female holotype of Herpyllus calcuttaensis (NZC-ZSI-5116/ 18). (a) habitus, dorsal view. (b) epigyne, ventral view. (c) same, dorsal view. (d) label from type bottle. Scale bars a = 2 mm; b–c = 0.2 mm.