Hippasa greenalliae ( Blackwall, 1867 )

SANKARAN, PRADEEP M. & CALEB, JOHN T. D., 2023, Notes on Indian wolf spiders: II. Genus Hippasa Simon, 1885 (Araneae: Lycosidae Hippasinae), Zootaxa 5230 (2), pp. 101-152 : 143

Hippasa greenalliae ( Blackwall, 1867) , nomen dubium

Lycosa greenalliae Blackwall, 1867: 387 (Description of immature ♀).

Hippasa greenalliae — Simon 1885: 31, plate XX, fig. 6 (♂ ♀; transfer from Lycosa ). Sen et al. 2015: 47, plate XIV, figs 188–192 (♀) (misidentification, probably H. pantherina ). Dhali et al. 2017: 69, plate XXIII, figs 317–321 (♀) (misidentification, probably H. pantherina ). Subedi et al. 2022: 7.

Type material. Syntypes 2 immature ♀♀ from INDIA: somewhere in Agra or Meerut or New Delhi, date unknown, F. Lyon leg., repository unknown, possibly NHM, London or OUMNH, Oxford, not examined .

Remarks. Currently no specimens are available under the name ‘ Lycosa greenalliae ’ in OUMNH (Z. Simmons, pers. comm.) or is probably not deposited in NHM (D. Sherwood, pers. comm.). The type would either be lost, as most of Blackwall’s type material, or would be sitting elsewhere in the collection of OUMNH. The OUMNH collections hold a huge number of unsorted specimens in an enigmatic jar labeled ‘Blackwall’s types’, which does not have any specific labeling or listing, so that it requires careful examination of each specimen to cross verify with original description to identify each type (Z. Simmons, pers. comm.). The original description of this species does not provide any information regarding the exact name of its type locality ( Blackwall 1867). It may probably be noted in the label (if any) kept along with the type specimens. To solve the taxonomic problems of H. greenalliae , either the type should be rediscovered, so that the name of the exact collecting locality will be available, or field collections should be made from Agra, Meerut and New Delhi and specimens obtained are compared with the original description of this species to assign a neotype for it. Until then, it is safe to consider H. greenalliae as a nomen dubium.