Hippasa himalayensis Gravely 1924
Creators: name: SANKARAN, PRADEEP M.
name: CALEB, JOHN T. D.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2023
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Arachnida
Araneae
Lycosidae
Hippasa
Hippasa himalayensis

description: Hippasa himalayensis Gravely, 1924
Fig. 14, 37
Hippasa himalayensis Gravely, 1924: 593, fig. 1A (♀). Tikader & Malhotra 1980: 281, figs 80–82 (♀).
Type material. Lectotype ♀ from INDIA: West Bengal (Eastern Himalayas): Darjeeling: Sevoke / Sevok / Sivok (26°53'N, 88°28'E; 304 m alt. (= 1000 ft.)), 5-6-1912, Lord Carmichael’s collection, repository NZC-ZSI (2268/18), examined. Paralectotype ♀♀ (of unknown number) with same data as previous collection except no register, examined.
Other material examined. INDIA: West Bengal (Eastern Himalayas): Kalimpong (formerly part of Darjeeling), (27°03'N, 88°27'E; 182-457 m alt. (= 600-1500 ft.)), date unknown, collector unknown: 1 ♀ (NZC-ZSI 5165 /H2); Western Himalayas, date unknown, collector unknown: 1 ♀ (NZC-ZSI, no register number specified).
Diagnosis. Females of H. himalayensis are most similar to the females of H. australis Lawrence, 1927 as both share a trapezoid median plate of the epigyne with a large atrium, but can be separated from the latter by the triangular atrium (vs. inverted flower vase-shaped in H. australis, compare Fig. 14C with Alderweireldt & Jocqué 2005: fig. 21).
Supplementary description. Female in ethanol (lectotype, NZC-ZSI 2268/18, Fig. 14A–B). Body length 10.38. Carapace 5.00 long, 3.69 wide. Opisthosoma 5.38 long, 3.53 wide. Eye sizes and interdistances: ALE 0.18, AME 0.20, PLE 0.29, PME 0.32; AME–ALE 0.11, AME–AME 0.12, AME–PME 0.20, PLE–PLE 0.97, PME–PLE 0.36, PME–PME 0.33. Clypeus height at AMEs 0.28, at ALEs 0.27. Length of chelicerae 2.11. Measurements of palp and legs: palp 6.48 [2.14, 1.09, 1.35, 1.90], I 15.44 [4.18, 1.80, 3.47, 3.87, 2.12], II (right) 14.99 [4.21, 1.78, 3.13, 3.91, 1.96], III 14.52 [4.39, 1.69, 3.27, 3.42, 1.75], IV ---- [5.39, 1.86, 4.48, 6.46, ----]. Genitalia (Fig. 14C–D): epigyne clothed in bushy setae (Fig. 14C), with trapezoid median and short lateral plates (Fig. 14C); median plate with a large, triangular atrium leading to a short hood internally (Fig. 14C–D). Spermathecal stalks short, with retrolaterally oriented proximal and prolaterally oriented distal parts (Fig. 14D). Accessory glands globular, with short stalk (Fig. 14D). Spermathecae peanut-shaped, posteriorly directed (Fig. 14D). Fertilization ducts anteriorly directed, diverging.
Male. Unknown.
Distribution. India: Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal (Gravely 1924; Tikader & Malhotra 1980) (Fig. 37).
Remarks. Even though Sinha (1951) mentioned that a lot of specimens of H. himalayensis were deposited in the Indian Museum collection (which was later transferred to ZSI), the NZC-ZSI currently holds only three glass bottles, and the remaining ones may either be lost or misplaced elsewhere in the collection. A bottle contains a female specimen in good condition with intact genitalia (5165/H2), which is labeled as ‘ H. himalayana formerly H. olivacea ’ and was re-determined by T.B. Sinha. A second bottle contains a female specimen in bad condition with intact genitalia (no register number specified), which is labeled as ‘ H. himalayensis Gravely?’ and was determined by T.B. Sinha. A third bottle (5163/112) contains two females in good condition, with broken legs and intact genitalia. The same bottle has a separate tube labeled as ‘lectotype’ (2268/18), containing a female in good condition with intact genitalia. This lectotype might have been designated by Sinha (1951) by selecting a specimen from Lord Carmichael’s collection that was made from the Darjeeling district of West Bengal. Since the specimens in the former two bottles were determined/re-determined by T.B. Sinha, we presume that the two female specimens in the third bottle represent the syntypes of H. himalayensis. We dissected the genitalia of one of these syntypes for the present study.
description: Published as part of SANKARAN, PRADEEP M. & CALEB, JOHN T. D., 2023, Notes on Indian wolf spiders: II. Genus Hippasa Simon, 1885 (Araneae: Lycosidae Hippasinae), pp. 101-152 in Zootaxa 5230 (2) on pages 119-120, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5230.2.1, http://zenodo.org/record/7554943