Roquettea andina Medrano & Kury & Mendes, 2022

Medrano, Miguel, Kury, Adriano Brilhante & Mendes, Amanda Cruz, 2022, Morphology-based cladistics splinters the century-old dichotomy of the pied harvestmen (Arachnida: Gonyleptoidea: Cosmetidae), Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 195, pp. 585-672 : 664

ROQUETTEA ANDINA ( ROEWER, 1947) COMB. NOV.

( FIG. 59 )

Gryne andina Roewer, 1947: 33 , pl. 12, fig. 108.

Type data: Holotype: Venezuela. [Aragua]: Maracay , 1 ♀ ( SMF RII 5873 /10, examined by photograph).

Diagnosis: Although females of R. peba and R, scrotalis are not known, the colour pattern of the males shows the occurrence of yellow spots in areas of mesotergum and even the carapace. Female of R. andina comb. nov. differs from its congeners by having: mesotergum almost deprived of yellow spots and ornamentation of area I extremely reduced/inconspicuous ( Fig. 59A, B ).

Distribution: There is no record to date of one species similar to Roquettea andina from Maracay ( Venezuela). We do not have any evidence that this locality is mistaken. However, a significant similarity with other females of Roquettea is evident and the present analysis retrieved it nested in a clade with them. Roquettea was recently revised and its distribution seems to be restricted almost uniquely to the Basin of Tocantins River, in lower Brazil ( Medrano & Kury, 2018), the closest point of a Roquettea species to Maracay is near 2000 km, whereby we suspected a spelling error in the original label ( Fig. 59C ). A recent visit to MPEG by the first author allowed identification of a hitherto ‘undescribed’ species from Ilha de Marajó (with spelling suspiciously similar to Maracay) that possesses the same pattern of coloration as G. andina , but we do not have access to this material at the present time. Future investigations will allow us to determine if they are, in fact, specimens of the same species.

Remarks: The genus was recently revised and a cladistic analysis tested and corroborated the monophyly of Roquettea . The inclusion of Gryne andina as a member of Roquettea does not require the modification of the diagnosis of the genus. On the other hand, the female specimen used by Roewer in the description may be identified as a member of Roquettea by external morphology and by having the same colour pattern of small spots absent from part of mesotergum and from fenestra posterior ( Fig. 59 ).

Figures

Figure 59. Roquettea andina, female holotype (SMF RII 5873/10). A, dorsal view. B, oblique view. C, original label. Photos courtesy Abel Pérez.