Anoplodactylus californicus Hall, 1912

Bamber, Roger & Takahashi, Yoshie, 2005, Some littoral sea spiders (Arthropoda: Pycnogonida) from Ecuador, with a new species of Anoplodactylus Wilson, 1878 (Phoxichilidiidae), Zootaxa 815, pp. 1-8 : 4

Anoplodactylus californicus Hall, 1912

Hall, 1912, 91–93, figures 49, 52. Child, 1987, 554–555 (literature); Child, 1992b, 43, figure 19.

Material: one female, Playas, Guayas Province, 02º38.23’S 80º23.3’W, 29 July 2001, low water.

A pantropical, pantemperate species, which includes A. portus Calman, 1927 . The female has proximoventral alar processes on the proboscis; the male has a very small, narrow cement gland tube, and a long genital process (spur) on the ventral surface of coxa 2 of the fourth leg.

Remarks: This species has been taken in depths of less than 100 m., usually in the littoral. Child (1992a) recorded a number of specimens from the Ecuador coast, from Isla El Viejo, and Bahia de Santa Helena. This species was previously recorded from the Pacific coasts of California to Panama and Costa Rica; elsewhere it is known from Chile to the Magellanic region of the Subantarctic, and from the Caribbean to Brazil, and in the Mediterranean.