Macrobunidae Bonnet, 1957

Marusik, Yuri M. & Haddad, Charles R., 2024, A new species and new records of Chumma (Araneae, Macrobunidae) from South Africa, African Invertebrates 65 (2), pp. 329-338 : 329-338

Macrobunidae Bonnet, 1957

Remarks.

The type species of Macrobunus Tullgren, 1901 , M. backhauseni (Simon, 1896) was redescribed, redefined and extensively illustrated by Almeida-Silva (2013), with an updated diagnosis of the genus provided. However, this work has never been formally published and is thus not included in the literature on the species or in the World Spider Catalog ( WSC 2024). With the exception of Chumma , genera included in the Macrobunidae have no dorsal abdominal scuta. Almeida-Silva (2013) mentions that in several genera considered in the family the ALS are usually larger than the PMS and PLS and mentioned a vestigial form: “ Males with reduced PLS may lack spigots on these ” ( Almeida-Silva 2013). Jocqué (2001: fig. 2 a) and Almeida-Silva (2013) showed that the PMS and PLS of female C. inqueta Jocqué, 2001 were similar in size and both smaller than the ALS. In this paper, we image the spinnerets of male Chumma for the first time, showing that both posterior pairs are significantly reduced in size and can be considered vestigial (Fig. 1 E ).

Figures

Figure 1. Holotype male of Chumma foordi sp. nov., somatic morphology A habitus, dorsal B same, frontal C prosoma, ventral D abdomen, ventral E spinnerets, caudal F tarsus I, dorso-lateral. Abbreviations: Ld lateral depression; Pi round pit of scutum; PLS posterior lateral spinneret; PMS posterior median spinneret.