Epidius bazarus ( Tikader, 1970 ) Tang & Yin & Peng & Griswold, 2009

Tang, Guo, Yin, Changmin, Peng, Xianjin & Griswold, Charles, 2009, Six Crab Spiders Of The Subfamily Stephanopinae From Southeast Asia (Araneae: Thomisidae), Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 57 (1), pp. 39-50 : 42

Epidius bazarus ( Tikader, 1970) , new combination

( Figs. 2 A–F, 7)

Platythomisus bazarus Tikader, 1970: 48 , Fig. 27a-c; Tikader, 1971: 65, Fig. 17M–P; 1980: 171, Figs. 237–239. (type specimens collected from West Sikkim, India and deposited in IZA, India, inaccessible; not examined)

Material examined. 1 female (HNU-Tang 2003102801), Daxinzai Village (24°32'N 98°24'E), 1,219 m, Wuhe Township, Tengchong County, Yunnan Province, China, coll. G. Tang, 28 Oct.2003 . 1 female (CaAS-19611021), Lataguri , 110 m, West Bengal, India, coll. E. Ross, 21 May 1961 .

Diagnosis. – The species can be easily separated from E. gongi (Song & Kim, 1992) by: female with larger body size: 7.36–7.62 (6.00– 6.60 in E. gongi ); copulatory ducts curved and tube-shaped (short and straight in E. gongi ); spermathecae small and spherical (spermathecae with 2 chambers in E. gongi ).

Description. – Female. Total length: 7.36–7.62. The specimen of total length 7.62 measured: carapace 3.47 long, 3.14 wide; abdomen 4.58 long, 2.76 wide. Cephalothorax: Carapace slightly raised on the median, light yellow, without markings. Cervical grooves, radial grooves and fovea indistinct. Eye area gray, compact, eye tubercles grayish-black, small, eye sizes and interdistances: ALE 0.17, PLE 0.16, AME 0.06, PME 0.14; AME-AME 0.17, AME-ALE 0.12, PME-PME 0.28, PME-PLE 0.20, MOA length 0.43 with front width 0.30 and back width 0.52. Sternum pale yellow. Chelicerae, gnathocoxae, labium yellow. Leg femora yellow, metatarsi and tarsi yellowish-brown. Leg measurements: I 19.20 (6.00, 7.20, 4.00, 2.00), II 18.60 (5.80, 7.20, 3.80, 1.80), III 9.50 (2.90, 3.80, 1.80, 1.00), IV 10.00 (3.00, 4.00, 2.00, 1.00); formula 1, 2, 4, 3. Legs light yellow. Spination: femur: I dorsal, weak spine: 0-0-1-0-0, II–IV 0-1-0-0-1, prolateral (weak) 0-1-2-1-1 (right), 1-1-2-1-1 (left); tibiae: prolateral I–IV 0-0-1-1, ventral I-II 2-2-2-2-2, III–IV 2-2-2, metatarsus I–II prolateral 1-0-0-1ap, ventral 2-2-2-2; III–IV prolateral 1-1-1ap, III ventral 0-2-2. Abdomen elongate oval, dorsum with broken silvery white spots; cardiac pattern gray, 2 pairs of muscular depressions visible; laterally silvery white; venter light yellow. Epigyne simple, atrium depressed; with a pair of sclerotized plates posteriorly; copulatory ducts curved in n-shaped; spermathecae spherical.

Distribution. – China (Tengchong County of Yunnan), India.

Remarks. – The type specimen of Platythomisus bazarus was kept in ZSI and is unavailable for study by foreign arachnologists ( Lehtinen, 2004: 178). However, the locality of one of our specimens (Lataguri, West Bengal, India) is adjacent to that of Platythomisus bazarus (Nayabazar, West Sikkim, India). After comparing the descriptions and figures of Platythomisus bazarus Tikader, 1970 , and those of our specimens (from India, China), it was found that they should be the same species. Both of our specimens bear the following diagnostic characters of the genus Epidius : tibiae and metatarsi of legs I & II slender with thick ventral spines, epigyne with an atrium and a pairs of posterior sclerotized plates, eye arrangement also as same as that of Epidius . Because of those, Platythomisus bazarus should be transferred to the genus Epidius as Epidius bazarus ( Tikader, 1970) , new combination.

Figures

Fig. 2. Epidius bazarus (Tikader, 1970): A, habitus of female (from Yunnan, China); B, habitus of female (from West Bengal, India); C, E, epigyne; D, F, vulva; sp, sclerotized plate. Scale bars: A–B = 1.0 mm; C–F = 0.1 mm.