Latouchia Pocock 1901
Creators: name: Decae, Arthur E.
name: Schwendinger, Peter J.
name: Hongpadharakiree, Komsan
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2021
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Arachnida
Araneae
Ctenizidae
Latouchia

description: Latouchia Pocock, 1901
Diagnosis. Latouchia is readily distinguished from Conothele by the sturdy and stiff embolus of the male palpal organ which has small but distinct modifications (e.g., teeth, curves, keels, twists, etc.) at its tip (Figs 8 F−J, 10F−J), by the mono- or bipartite spermathecae lacking a strongly pigmented median part (Figs 9 E−J, 11E−L), and by the shortened tibia III without a fully developed dorsal saddle-shaped depression and without saddle crescents in females (Figs 9B–C, 11B–C).
Taxonomic status. Our current knowledge of the genus Latouchia is very poor. As mentioned above for Conothele, sampling deficiency and a lack of systematic studies are the reason for this lack of knowledge. The World Spider Catalog (2021) lists 18 Latouchia species as valid. Both sexes of eleven species have been described, seven species are only known from females.
Notes. The taxonomical foundation of the genus Latouchia was recently revised, and the originally designated female holotype of the type species, L. fossoria Pocock, 1901, was re-established and redescribed (Decae & Caranhac 2020). That revision was necessary in order to correct a long-standing taxonomical ambiguity about the correct type species of Latouchia, being either L. fossoria or L. davidi (Simon, 1886). The revision led to the discovery that L. fossoria and L. davidi belong to different species groups. Other arguments for the lack of taxonomical consistency in the genus Latouchia is found in the variability of the general structure of the male palp and the structure of tibia III in females. The male palp is distinctly shortened in L. cornuta (Song et al. 1983: fig. 1), relatively unmodified in L. stridulans (Decae 2019: fig. 13), and strongly elongated in L. schwendingeri (Decae 2019: fig. 33) and the two new species described below. The female tibia III is short and sub-cylindrical in the holotype of L. fossoria (Decae & Caranhac 2020: fig. 3) and in all Latouchia species thus far described, whereas in the two new species presented below it is proximally narrowed and forming a “demi-saddle” (Figs 9 B−C, 11B−C). The “demi-saddle” is distinctly reminiscent of the “full-saddle” seen in Conothele spp. (Figs 5 C−D, 7C−D).
The remarkable intra-generic diversity observed in L. fossoria, L. davidi (Decae & Caranhac 2020) and the species described below concerning the morphology of tibia III and of the male palp may lead to a taxonomic split of the genus when more information becomes available (Decae 2019).
The two new species described below are tentatively placed in Latouchia, awaiting clarification from an ongoing larger systematic, DNA-based study of a more representative sample of ummidiid spider material.
description: Published as part of Decae, Arthur E., Schwendinger, Peter J. & Hongpadharakiree, Komsan, 2021, Descriptions of four new trapdoor spider species in the subfamily Ummidiinae from Thailand (Araneae, Mygalomorphae, Halonoproctidae), pp. 300-323 in Zootaxa 4984 (1) on page 312, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4984.1.22, http://zenodo.org/record/4927325