Cheiracanthium sadanai Tikader, 1976

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 : 1318

Cheiracanthium sadanai Tikader, 1976 , stat. resurr.

Cheiracanthium sadanai Tikader, 1976, p. 175 , fig 1–4 (description of holotype ♀ and allotype ♂ from INDIA: Punjab, Ludhiana Agricultural University compound; Dr L. Sadana leg. 12.6.1887). Majumder and Tikader 1991: 90, figs. 197–202 (♂ ♀).

Cheiracanthium melanostomum: Deeleman-Reinhold 2001, p. 231 , p. 254 (synonymy of C. sadanai with C. melanostomum , even though the author herself was uncertain about this decision; here rejected).

Comments

This species was originally described from Punjab State, India ( Tikader 1976) from both sexes. The conspecificity of the two species, C. melanostomum and C. sadanai , is not at all certain. The respective suggestion by Deeleman-Reinhold (2001, p. 231) is not reasonable. In the original description of C. sadanai it is indicated that ‘cephalothorax, abdomen and legs light green’ ( Tikader 1976, p. 176), while in the original description of C. melanostomum , it is indicated that the cephalothorax colouration ranges from testaceous to dark testaceous ( Thorell 1895, p. 44). According to the redescription by Majumder and Tikader (1991), Indian specimens of C. melanostomum also have a colour pattern (‘cephalothorax, legs and abdomen light brown’, cf. Majumder and Tikader 1991, p. 63) different from that of C. sadanai . Other potential distinguishing characteristics are indicated in the definitive key of Majumder and Tikader (1991, p. 54–56). However, currently, there is no publication that includes illustrations that allow an unambiguous definition of either C. melanostomum or C. sadanai according to the characters of the copulatory organs (all illustrations of these species in the relevant literature are too small and/or hard to interpret). Moreover, there is no indication that the types of C. sadanai had been re-examined by any of the subsequent authors (that either treated C. melanostomum or C. sadanai ). Unfortunately, due to strict regulations in India, the type specimens were not available for this study either.