Pholcus bukittimah Huber, sp. nov.
Creators: name: Bernard A. Huber
name: Joseph K. H. Koh
name: Amir-Ridhwan M. Ghazali
name: Kamil A. Braima
name: Olga M. Nuñeza
name: Charles Leh Moi Ung
name: Booppa Petcharad
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2016
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Arachnida
Araneae
Pholcidae
Pholcus
Pholcus bukittimah

description: Pholcus bukittimah Huber sp. nov.
urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:93CDF3AF-2A6D-4AFE-926B-3FE43BBD495E
Figs 59–62, 67–71, 79, 87–89
Diagnosis
Easily distinguished from most similar known relatives (other species of the P. ethagala group on the Malay Peninsula) by morphology of male palps (Figs 67–68; extremely long curved male palpal trochanter apophysis; procursus with slender dorsal process and long whitish retrolateral area), and by details of female internal genitalia (Figs 70–71; anterior triangular sclerite; semicircular pore plates; posterior rectangular structure).
Etymology
The species is derived from the type locality; noun in apposition.
Material examined
Holotype
SINGAPORE: ♂, ZFMK (Ar 15706), Bukit Timah, Dairy Farm Nature Park (1.360°N, 103.778°E), 50 m a.s.l., leaf litter near Wallace Trail, 15 Feb. 2015 (B.A. Huber, J.K.H. Koh).
Other material
SINGAPORE: 1 ♂, 1 ♀, ZFMK (Ar 15707), same data as holotype; 2 ♀♀, in absolute ethanol, ZFMK (Mal 212, Mal 256), same data.
Description
Male (holotype)
MEASUREMENTS. Total body length 3.5, carapace width 0.95. Leg 1: 29.5 (6.9 + 0.4 + 7.0 + 13.4 + 1.8), tibia 2: 4.0, tibia 3: 2.5, tibia 4: 3.9; tibia 1 L/d: 84. Distance PME-PME 440 µm, diameter PME 115 µm, distance PME-ALE ~35 µm; AME absent.
COLOR. Carapace pale ochre-yellow with light brown median V-mark posteriorly, clypeus light brown, ocular area not darkened; sternum whitish; legs ochre-yellow with darker brown patellae and tibiametatarsus joints; abdomen gray with some black marks dorsally and laterally.
BODY. Habitus as in Figs 59–60; ocular area raised and each triad on long stalk (Fig. 79); carapace without median furrow; clypeus unmodified; sternum wider than long (0.62/0.48), unmodified.
CHELICERAE. As in Fig. 69, with single pair of frontal proximal apophyses; without distal modification; without stridulatory ridges.
PALPS. As in Figs 67–68; coxa unmodified; trochanter with very long curved retrolatero-ventral apophysis and small weakly sclerotized retrolateral process; femur with indistinct ventral humps proximally and distally; tarsus with large rounded elongation; procursus complex, proximal part with distinctive dorsal process; hinged distal part with large whitish area retrolaterally and transparent fringed processes prolaterally; bulb with very large appendix, long slender embolus, and small uncus-like process partly sclerotized as continuation of proximal bulbal sclerite.
LEGS. Without spines and curved hairs; few vertical hairs; retrolateral trichobothrium on tibia 1 at 2%; prolateral trichobothrium absent on tibia 1, present on other tibiae; tarsus 1 pseudosegments very indistinct, apparently irregular.
Male (variation)
Tibia 1 in other male: 7.7.
Female
In general similar to male (Fig. 62) but eye triads not on stalks and much closer together than in male (PME-PME distance: 200 µm); clypeus and ocular area frontally dark brown, with pair of small black marks in area of AME (but without lenses). Tibia 1 in 1 female: 5.8. Epigynum weakly sclerotized (Fig. 87), only posterior rim slightly more sclerotized, with small dark ‘knob’ (Fig. 70); large anterior triangular internal sclerite visible through cuticle; internal genitalia as in Figs 71, 88–89.
Natural history
All specimens were found in an area of the forest where large dead leaves on the ground were abundant. They built their domed webs closely attached to the undersides of the leaves. A few eggs in an egg-sac of one female were parasitized by Idris wasps (Fig. 62).
Distribution
Known from type locality in Singapore only (Fig. 1).
description: Published as part of Bernard A. Huber, Joseph K. H. Koh, Amir-Ridhwan M. Ghazali, Kamil A. Braima, Olga M. Nuñeza, Charles Leh Moi Ung & Booppa Petcharad, 2016, New leaf- and litter-dwelling species of the genus Pholcus from Southeast Asia (Araneae, Pholcidae), pp. 1-45 in European Journal of Taxonomy 200 (200) on pages 18-21, DOI: 10.5852/ejt.2016.200, http://zenodo.org/record/897219