Transfer of the Indian species formerly included in the genus Lutica Marx, 1891 to Tropizodium Jocqué & Churchill, 2005 and Zodarion Walckenaer, 1826 (Araneae Zodariidae)
Author
Sankaran, Pradeep M.
Author
Caleb, John T. D.
Author
Sebastian, Pothalil A.
text
Zootaxa
2019
2019-08-21
4658
1
168
174
journal article
25955
10.11646/zootaxa.4658.1.8
82058943-db9e-40c6-886e-eb8d9d227bd7
1175-5326
3373197
2A748EF1-ECAF-4966-B882-6EF3B4CD56B0
Zodarion deccanensis
(
Tikader & Malhotra, 1976
)
comb. nov.
(
Fig. 4
A–H)
Lutica deccanensis
Tikader & Malhotra, 1976: 794
, figs 1–5 (Description and illustrations of male and female).
Tikader, 1981: 139
, figs 1–2 (Illustrations of female).
FIGURE 4.
Zodarion deccanensis
(
Tikader & Malhotra, 1976
)
comb. nov.
. A Holotype female habitus, dorsal. B Allotype male habitus, dorsal. C Epigyne of holotype female, ventral. D Vulva of the same, dorsal. E Pedipalp of allotype male, prolateral. F–G Labels from type bottles. H Original illustrations adopted from
Tikader and Malhotra (1976)
. Scale bars: A–B 1 mm; C–D 0.2 mm; E 0.5 mm.
Type material.
Holotype
female from
INDIA
:
Maharashtra
:
Pune
(=Poona):
Gokhale Nagar
:
Vetal Hill
(
18°31’31.76’’N
,
73°48’55.38’’E
),
705 m
alt.;
M.S. Malhotra
leg.;
21 July 1974
; repository NZC-ZSI,
Kolkata
(no register number), examined
.
Allotype
(
1 male
, no register number) with same data as holotype, examined
.
Type material status.
The ZSI collection has three glass bottles for this species. The first bottle, labelled as ‘holotype’, contains one female specimen with broken legs. The second bottle, labelled as ‘allotype’, contains one highly bleached male. The third bottle, labelled as ‘internal genitalia of
L
.
deccanensis
’, contains the dissected genitalia of the
holotype
.
Justification of transfer.
Tikader and Malhotra (1976)
described this species based on one female and one male specimens collected in
Maharashtra
. Detailed examination of the
holotype
(
Fig. 4A
, C–D) and the
allotype
(
Fig. 4B, E
) indicates that this species deviates from the diagnostic features of
Tropizodium
species. The shape of the female prosoma (
Fig. 4A
), shape and orientation of the embolus (
Fig. 4E
), shape of the epigyne (
Fig. 4C
) and shape and orientation of the vulva (
Fig. 4D
) show close similarity with the species of
Zodarion
Walckenaer, 1826
. Based on these observations, we propose to transfer
L
.
deccanensis
to
Zodarion
.