Six Crab Spiders Of The Subfamily Stephanopinae From Southeast Asia (Araneae: Thomisidae)
Author
Tang, Guo
Author
Yin, Changmin
Author
Peng, Xianjin
Author
Griswold, Charles
text
Raffles Bulletin of Zoology
2009
2009-02-28
57
1
39
50
journal article
10.5281/zenodo.4508210
2345-7600
4508210
Epidius
Thorell, 1877
Epidius
Thorell, 1877: 492
;
Simon, 1897: 10
;
Millot, 1941: 65
.
Cupa
Strand
, in Bösenberg & Strand, 1906 (Song & Zhu, 1997:
23, misidentified)
Type
species. –
Epidius longipalpis
Thorell, 1877
, by original designation.
Diagnosis
. –
Small to medium size, Head area narrow, eye tubercles of each side continuous. Chelicera with 3 promarginal and 2 retromarginal teeth, the larger retromarginal one bifid. Legs slender with many spines. Epigyne usually with an atrium and a pair of posterior sclerotized plates. Male tibia with VTA and 4–6 macrosetae in a row.
Distribution.
–
Africa,
India
,
Sri Lanka
, Java, Sumatra, the
Philippines
,
Indonesia
,
Vietnam
,
China
.
Remarks
. –
This genus is composed of 9 species from Africa and Southeast Asia.
Epidius
is a group of poorly known special crab spiders and differs from other genera greatly by their general appearance and genital organs. This genus is similar to
Sanmenia
in the shape of embolus and conductor of male palp, but can be separated from the latter by: body usually light yellow to gray without markings (gray to grayish-brown with some black-brown stripes or markings in
Sanmenia
), epigyne usually with a pair of sclerotized plates posteriorly (without those in
Sanmenia
) and male palp with only VTA (with both VTA and RTA in
Sanmenia
). After checking the
type
specimens of
Cupa gongi
Song & Kim, 1992
, (the only representative of the genus
Cupa
recorded from
China
), it is found that
Cupa gongi
Song & Kim, 1992
, was misidentified as a representative of the genus
Cupa
. The male palp of
Cupa gongi
has a spatulate VTA and a row of macrosetae, which are the typical diagnostic characters of the genus
Epidius
.
Cupa gongi
Song & Kim, 1992
, should be transferred to the genus
Epidius
as
E. gongi
(Song & Kim, 1992)
. Therefore, there is no real representative of
Cupa
found in
China
now.