Namea excavans Raven, 1984

Rix, Michael G., Wilson, Jeremy D. & Harvey, Mark S., 2020, The open-holed trapdoor spiders (Mygalomorphae: Anamidae: Namea) of Australia’s D’Aguilar Range: revealing an unexpected subtropical hotspot of rainforest diversity, Zootaxa 4861 (1), pp. 71-91 : 88

Namea excavans Raven, 1984

( Figs 13 , 17a, b )

Namea excavans Raven, 1984: 29 , figs 16, 29, 58-59, 82-83, 111. Rix et al., 2020: 712 , figs 2, 3, 177–189.

Type material. AUSTRALIA: Queensland: male holotype, Mount Glorious , 630 m, 29 May 1973, A. Chew ( QMB S813 ) . Paratypes: 1 male, Mount Glorious (GM91), pitfall trap, rainforest, 630 m, 26 June–18 November 1978, G. & S. Monteith ( QMB S815 ) ; 1 male, same data except (GM45), 6 August–12 November 1975 ( QMB S814 ) .

Other material examined. Australia: Queensland: 1 male, D’Aguilar National Park, Mount Glorious, 27°19’40”S, 152°45’13”E, pitfall trap, 687 m, 15–20 October 2014, Entomological Society of Queensland Bugcatch ( QMB S111535 DNA) .

Diagnosis. Males of Namea excavans can be distinguished from those of all other described congeners except N. dahmsi by the morphology of the palpal tibia, which has multiple proximal and/or medial macrosetae on the retroventral margin ( Fig. 17b ; see also Rix et al. 2020, figs 187, 188). Males can be further distinguished from those of N. dahmsi by the long, reflexed and whip-like embolus ( Fig. 17b ; cf. Fig. 21b ; see also Rix et al. 2020, figs 187, 188).

Females are unknown.

Distribution. Namea excavans is endemic to the D’Aguilar Range, where it is known only from rainforest at Mount Glorious ( Rix et al. 2020) ( Fig. 2 ).

Remarks. This species is extremely rare, and currently known from only a handful of male specimens. Nothing is known of its biology or life history, other than that males appear to be active in winter or spring.

Figures

FIGURE 13. Phylogeny of the genus Namea modified from Rix et al. (2020; fig. 2), inferred from a partitioned Bayesian analysis of that study’s ‘FULL’ dataset (151 taxa, 5,261 bp, 50% majority-rule consensus tree). Clades corresponding to 30 morpho-species OTUs are collapsed for the genus Namea (square brackets denote the number of specimens included in each clade), and nodes have a posterior probability of ≥ 0.98 unless otherwise stated. Seven species recorded from the D’Aguilar Range (south-eastern Queensland) are highlighted in enlarged bold text; note that specimens of an eighth species, N. gloriosa sp. nov., were not sequenced for this study.

FIGURES 14–21. Comparative morphology of Namea from the D’Aguilar Range (south-eastern Queensland); each figure for each species depicts (a) the male tibia I in standardised prolateral view, (b) the male pedipalp in retrolateral view, +/- (c) the female cleared genitalia in dorsal view (if known): 14, N. gloriosa sp. nov. (QMB S10269); 15, N. nigritarsus sp. nov. (QMB S111534); 16, N. nebo sp. nov. (QMB S65274); 17, N. excavans Raven, 1984 (QMB S813); 18, N. brisbanensis Raven, 1984 (QMB S767 [male], S111397 [female]); 19, N.gowardae sp. nov.(QMB S774 [male], S111377 [female]); 20, N. salanitri Raven, 1984 (QMB S1166 [male], S111396 [female; with epigastric lobes highlighted*); 21, N. dahmsi Raven, 1984 (QMB S88018 [male tibia I], S800 [male pedipalp], S111481 [female; note bent right spermathecal fundus]). Tibial macrosetae are coloured and labelled according to their relative position (dark blue, prodorsal [pd]; red, prolateral [p] or proventral [pv]; dark grey, ventral [v]; light blue, retroventral [rv]).

FIGURES 1–3. The D’Aguilar Range of south-eastern Queensland: 1, elevational heat map showing upland areas surrounding Brisbane, and the relative position of the D’Aguilar Range; 2, topographic map of the D’Aguilar Range (in shaded relief), with major localities highlighted; 3, typical habitat for Namea on rainforest bank at Mount Glorious (Maiala section). Image 3 copyright Queensland Museum (used with permission).