Lycosa excusor L. Koch, 1867

Framenau, Volker W. & Baehr, Barbara C., 2016, Revision of the Australian Union-Jack wolf spiders, genus Tasmanicosa (Araneae, Lycosidae, Lycosinae), Zootaxa 4213 (1), pp. 1-82 : 50-51

Lycosa excusor L. Koch, 1867

Lycosa excusor L. Koch, 1867: 202 –205. Roewer 1955: 271; Rack 1961: 37; McKay 1973: 379; McKay 1985: 76. Lycosa excursor L. Koch. — Bonnet 1957: 2640 (misspelled).

Allocosa excusor (L. Koch) .— Roewer 1959: 226.

Allocosa excursor (L. Koch) .— Platnick 1993: 472 (misspelled).

Type data. Syntypes. 1 immature male, 1 immature female, “ Brinsbane ” (= Brisbane) [27°28’S, 153°01’E, Queensland, AUSTRALIA] ( ZMB 3475 ) (examined).

Remarks. Koch (1867) described this species from a male and a female collected in Brisbane (Queensland), but did not elaborate if these were mature spiders or not. Rack (1961) reported the ‘holotype’ male of L. excusor missing in the ZMH, disregarding that the species was described on a syntype series . However, she listed two females (both immature, VWF pers. observation) from Brisbane [27°28’S, 153°01’E, Queensland] ( ZMH, ( Rack (1961) -catalogue 453; Museum Godeffroy 2263). Ignoring Rack’s (1961) inventory, McKay (1985) listed three syntypes of Lycosa excusor from the NHM. However, two of these specimens (1 male, 1 female, NHM 1919.9.18.335–336) were collected in Port McKay (Queensland) and cannot be syntypes . These are T. stella sp. nov. (VWF examined; see Appendix B). The other specimen (1 female, NHM 1919.9.18.334) was collected in Brisbane, however, is a mature female T. godeffroyi (VWF examined; see Appendix B). Two spiders, an immature male and an immature female, collected in Brisbane and lodged in the ZMB most closely match Koch’s (1867) description and are here considered the most likely syntype candidates for L. excusor .

Taking into account the uncertainty of any of the above listed spiders to be the types of L. excusor and the fact that the most likely candidates are immature (in combination with the fact that many species of Tasmanicosa are somatically very similar) it appears best to not arbitrarily choose one of these as lectotype, but consider the species, which cannot be identified based on Koch’s (1867) description alone, as nomen dubium.