Mysmenopsis penai Platnick & Shadab 1978
Creators: name: Dupérré, Nadine
name: Tapia, Elicio
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2020
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Arachnida
Araneae
Mysmenidae
Mysmenopsis
Mysmenopsis penai

description: Mysmenopsis penai Platnick & Shadab, 1978
Fig. 190–199, map 3 (black diamond).
Mysmenopsis penai Platnick & Shadab, 1978 a: 16, f. 46-48 (Description male); Lopardo & Hormiga, 2015: 781, f. 60A-H, 61A- D, 62A-H, 131A, 140L (male and female).
Type material. Male holotype from Coca, Rio Napo, Ecuador (May, 1965; L. Peña) (MCZ). Not examined.
Material examined. Ecuador: Napo Province: Misahualli, Via Arajuno (-01.090117 -77.543352) 458m, 19 May. 2019, 1♂ 1♀, in Lycosidae sp. web, E.E. Tapia (QCAZ).
Diagnosis. Males are distinguished from all species by the embolus accompanied by a large elongated, curved apophysis (Fig. 195), absent in M. yupanqui (Baert 1990, fig. 10) and three large macrosetae on the retrolateral ledge of the palpal tibia (Figs 195). Females are differentiated from most species by the absence of tubercle on femur I (Fig. 194) and the posterior margin of the epigynum deeply excavated (Figs 198); from M. yupanqui by the triangular base of the spermathecae (Fig. 199), rectangular in the latter species (Baert 1990, fig. 11).
Description. Male: See Platnick & Shadab 1978 (figs 180, 181, 183, 185–187). Female: Total length: 1.26; carapace length: 0.5; carapace width: 0.48; abdomen length: 0.76. Cephalothorax: carapace brown, pear-shaped; suffused black along pars cephalica and radiating lines (Fig. 190). Sternum dark brown; covered with long setae. Clypeus dark; low (2x AME). Chelicerae dark brown suffused black; promargin with three teeth; retromargin not observed. Eyes: Eight, rounded, all approximately of equal size; ocular region on very low protuberance; AME separated by their radius, AME-LE touching; ALE-PLE contiguous, LE-PME separated by their radius; PME separated by their diameter. Abdomen: oval, dark gray with white patches in hourglass pattern (Figs 190, 191). Legs: femur I yellow-brown, femora II-IV light yellow with basal, medial and apical dark band; tibia I yellow suffused with brown ventrally; tibiae and metatarsi II-IV light yellow with medial and apical dark band, tarsi light yellow with medial dark band; femur I not enlarged without tubercle (Fig. 194). Legs spination: patellae I-IV with one macroseta; tibiae I-IV with one macroseta dorso-proximally. Total length leg I: 1.87 (0.6/0.17/0.42/0.36/0.32). Genitalia: epigynum protruding, anterior epigynal margin not well delimited, posterior epigynal margin excavated medially (Fig. 198). Dorsal epigynal plate anterior margin with large sclerotized plate (Fig. 199). Internal genitalia with large irregularly shaped (triangular) spermathecae; copulatory ducts not observed; fertilization ducts large well sclerotized basally, curving apically and semi-transparent (Fig. 199).
Distribution. Ecuador, Napo and Orellana Provinces.
Natural history. The male and female M. penai were found in Aglaoctenus sp. (Lycosidae) web in the Napo region where they live in sympatry with M. athahualpa and M. amazonica n. sp. Specimens of a Theridiiae (Faiditus sp.) and a Mimetidae (Ero sp.) were also collected in the web. This species inhabits the Amazonian ecoregion and was found in an evergreen foothill forest on the Northeastern Andes (BsPn03) (Guevera, Mogollón, Cerón & Josse, 2013).
description: Published as part of Dupérré, Nadine & Tapia, Elicio, 2020, Megadiverse Ecuador: a review of Mysmenopsis (Araneae, Mysmenidae) of Ecuador, with the description of twenty-one new kleptoparasitic spider species, pp. 1-81 in Zootaxa 4761 (1) on pages 64-69, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4761.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/3743503