Cryptodrassus platnicki ( Gajbe, 1987 ) Sankaran & Caleb & Sebastian, 2020

Sankaran, Pradeep M., Caleb, John T. D. & Sebastian, Pothalil A., 2020, On the taxonomic validity of Indian ground spiders: II. Genera Drassyllus Chamberlin, 1922 and Nodocion Chamberlin, 1922 (Araneae: Gnaphosidae), European Journal of Taxonomy 673 (673), pp. 1-14 : 7-8

Cryptodrassus platnicki ( Gajbe, 1987) comb. nov.

Drassyllus platnicki Gajbe, 1987: 289 , figs 1–5.

Type material

Holotype (not examined)

INDIA • ♀; Maharashtra, Nagpur, Kachari Sawanga village / Kachari (sa) village; 21°11′41.53″ N, 78°39′12.05″ E; 448 m a.s.l.; 5 Mar. 1984; U.A. Gajbe leg.; NZC-ZSI, Kolkata 5144/18 .

Justification of the transfer

Even though we did not examine the type of D. platnicki , which may either be lost or misplaced somewhere in the collection, this species agrees with Cryptodrassus spp. in generic features such as obliquely placed, large, contiguous PMEs, cheliceral promargin with three and retromargin with single tooth and epigyne with anteriorly placed atrium. All these indicate that this species in fact belongs to Cryptodrassus . The structure of vulvae of this species looks closely similar to the vulvae of C. khajuriai comb. nov., suggesting a possible synonymy of the former species with the latter one (compare Figs 1 C–D, 2C–D with Gajbe 1987: figs 3–4); however, confirmation requires the examination of the type or topotype materials of C. platnicki comb. nov.

Remarks

We were unable to find the type of D. platnicki in the arachnid collection of ZSI, even though the author claimed that the type was deposited here ( Gajbe 1987).

Figures

Fig. 1. Cryptodrassus khajuriai (Tikader & Gajbe, 1976) comb. nov., ♀, holotype of Drassyllus khajuriai Tikader & Gajbe, 1976 (NZC-ZSI-5043/18). A. Habitus, dorsal view. B. Eyes of the same, dorsal view. C. Epigyne, ventral view. D. Same, dorsal view. E. Label from type bottle. Scale bars: A = 1 mm; B = 0.5 mm; C–D = 0.2 mm.