Geolycosa vultuosa
Creators: name: Steinpress, Igor Armiach
name: Cohen, Mira
name: Pétillon, Julien
name: Chipman, Ariel D.
name: Gavish-Regev, Efrat
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2022
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Arachnida
Araneae
Lycosidae
Geolycosa
Geolycosa vultuosa

description: Geolycosa vultuosa (C.L. Koch, 1838)
Figs 1, 2A, 3A, 4A, 5A, 6A, 7A, 8A, 21A, 22A
Lycosa vultuosa C.L. Koch, 1838: 102, figs 407–408 (D ♂ ♀).
Lycosa infernalis Motschulsky, 1849: 289, pl. 2 figs 1–2 (D ♂; N.B.: considered a nomen dubium by Zyuzin & Logunov 2000: 309).
Trochosa infernalis Thorell, 1875: 172 (D ♀).
Arctosa vultuosa – Simon 1864: 346.
Trochosa infernalis – Lendl 1887: 37, 51, figs 1–15 (♂ ♀).
Mimohogna vultuosa – Roewer 1955: 279.
Lycosa vultuosa – Fuhn & Niculescu-Burlacu 1971: 202, figs 98a–b, 99a–f (♂ ♀). — Miller 1971: 154, pl. xxiii fig. 24, pl. xxiv fig. 5 (♂ ♀). — Loksa 1972: 51, figs 44c, 46c–d (♂ ♀). — Mcheidze 1997: 226, figs 474–475 (♂ ♀).
Geolycosa vultuosa – Zyuzin & Logunov 2000: 308, figs 5–6, 10 (T ♂ ♀ from Lycosa). — Kovblyuk et al. 2012: 246, figs 8, 11, 14, 18, 21, 27, 30, 36, 39, 43 (♂ ♀).
Diagnosis
Large lycosids (carapace> 5 mm). 1 st eye row as wide as 2 nd eye row (PME). Front of cephalothorax square from above. 1 st eye row <0.5 width of front of carapace. Epigyne septum hammer-shaped, pedicel twice as long as than width of septum base. Terminal apophysis (TA) with prolateral spur. TA (incl. spur)> 0.5 width of bulb. The only species of Geolycosa in the Levantine region (Figs 1A, 2A, 3A, 4A, 5A, 6A).
The only species in the Levant with a similar habitus is Hogna effera (O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1872). It is generally smaller, with septal pedicel as long as width of septum base, TA smaller than 0.5 width of bulb.
Material examined
ISRAEL – Galilee • 2 ♂♂; Karmiel; [32.9168° N, 35.2946° E]; 30 Dec. 2016; I. Armiach Steinpress leg.; HUJ INV-AR20960, HUJ INV-AR20961.
Natural history
This is a burrowing species, found mainly in open, herbaceous habitats (Mcheidze 1997). Hibernation takes place in the burrow (at least in the north of its range) (Mcheidze 1997), juveniles emerge in springtime. Maturation takes about a year (Mcheidze 1997). The species is preyed upon by pompiliids, scorpions and centipedes, and the eggs are subject to mite infestations (Mcheidze 1997). The specimens examined in this study were found active in daytime in an urban meadow: one on the surface, the other in a burrow with a turret made of soil (Figs 7A, 19A, 21A, 22, Table 4).
Distribution
AZERBAIJAN, BULGARIA, GEORGIA, HUNGARY, IRAN, RUSSIA, TURKEY, UKRAINE (World Spider Catalog 2022), ISRAEL. According to Mcheidze (1997), also SYRIA.
Records
ISRAEL: Galilee (Karmiel) (Fig. 1).
Relationships
Geolycosa vultuosa is related to Geolycosa charitonovi (Mcheidze, 1997) and Geolycosa dunini Zyuzin & Logunov, 2000 (Zyuzin & Logunov 2000). The type species of Geolycosa (G. latifrons Montgomery, 1904) is of Nearctic distribution. It may not be congeneric with the Palearctic species ascribed to Geolycosa. As the revision work needed to find the correct phylogenetic placement of G. vultuosa is widely beyond the scope of this work, we refrained from moving G. vultuosa to a different genus.
description: Published as part of Steinpress, Igor Armiach, Cohen, Mira, Pétillon, Julien, Chipman, Ariel D. & Gavish-Regev, Efrat, 2022, Lycosa Latreille, 1804 (Araneae, Lycosidae) of Israel, with a note on Geolycosa Montgomery, 1904, pp. 1-54 in European Journal of Taxonomy 832 (1) on pages 12-13, DOI: 10.5852/ejt.2022.832.1877, http://zenodo.org/record/6916850