Sphingius caniceps Simon, 1906

Sankaran, Pradeep M. & Caleb, John T. D., 2021, On the taxonomic validity of Indian ground spiders: V. Genera Megamyrmaekion Reuss, 1834, Sosticus Chamberlin, 1922 and Gaviphosa gen. nov. (Araneae: Gnaphosidae), Zootaxa 5040 (4), pp. 539-564 : 554-557

Sphingius caniceps Simon, 1906

Figs 69–77

Sphingius caniceps Simon, 1906: 301 (♀). Dankittipakul et al. 2011: 19 , figs 38–39 (♀, illustrated syntype ♀).

Sosticus poonaensis Tikader, 1982: 440 , figs 330–334 (♀). New synonymy

Type material of S. poonaensis . Holotype ♀ from INDIA : Maharashtra: Pune (=Poona): Mukund Nagar (18°29’39’’N, 73°51’50’’E), 582 m alt., U.A. Gajbe leg., 25.VII.1975, NZC-ZSI, Kolkata (5057/18), examined . Paratypes 2 ♀♀, same data as holotype except 5058/18, examined .

Justification of the transfer and synonymy. The conical anterior lateral spinnerets of this species ( Fig. 72 ) clearly indicated that it is misplaced in Gnaphosidae . The original genitalic illustrations of this species ( Tikader 1982: figs 331–332) clearly indicated that it is misplaced in Sosticus . Examination of the types of this species revealed that it has diagnostic features of Sphingius as illustrated for Sphingius spinosus Dankittipakul, Tavano & Singtripop, 2011 , S. caniceps and Sphingius hainan Zhang, Fu & Zhu, 2009 : epigyne with anterior hood, anteriorly placed epigynal atrium with indistinct posterior margin and vulva consist of anterior bursae and spermathecae (compare Figs 75–77 with Zhang & Fu 2010: figs 9–10 and Dankittipakul et al. 2011: figs 25–26, 39). Further examination of the epigyne of S. poonaensis revealed that it is similar to that of S. caniceps as illustrated in Dankittipakul et al. (2011: fig. 39): plate-like anterior epigynal hood with W-shaped posterior margin, nearly circular epigynal atrium, medially situated large, elliptic copulatory openings and inverted droplet-shaped spermathecae (compare Fig. 75 with Dankittipakul et al. 2011: fig. 39). Based on these observations, we propose to consider S. poonaensis as a junior synonym of S. caniceps .

Remarks. The ZSI collection has two glass tubes with ‘ S. poonaensis ’. A tube labeled as ‘holotype’ (5057/18) contains a female specimen in fairly good condition, with broken legs and intact epigyne. The other tube labeled as ‘paratype’ (no register number) contains two female specimens in fairly good condition, with broken legs and intact epigynes (we had dissected the epigyne of one of the paratypes for examination).

Figures

FIGURES 69–74. Sphingius caniceps Simon, 1906, types of Sosticus poonaensis Tikader, 1982. 69 holotype female habitus, dorsal view; 70 paratype female habitus, dorsal view; 71 eyes of holotype female, dorsal view; 72 spinnerets of holotype female, ventral view; 73–74 labels from type tubes. Scale bars: 69–70, 2 mm; 71–72, 0.2 mm.

FIGURES 75–77. Sphingius caniceps Simon, 1906, types of Sosticus poonaensis Tikader, 1982. 75 epigyne of holotype female, ventral view; 76–77 genitalia of paratype female (76 epigyne, ventral view, 77 vulva, dorsal view). Abbreviations: AH, anterior epigynal hood; B, bursa; S, spermatheca. Scale bars: 75–76, 0.2 mm; 77, 0.1 mm.