Kryptonesticus fagei Pavlek & Ribera 2017, comb. nov.
Creators: name: Pavlek, Martina
name: Ribera, Carles
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2017
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Arachnida
Araneae
Nesticidae
Kryptonesticus
Kryptonesticus fagei

description: Kryptonesticus fagei (Kratochvíl, 1933) comb. nov.
Figs 2B, 3 D–F, 4B, 5E–H
Nesticus fagei Kratochvíl, 1933: 44, 64, pl. 1, fig 4, pl. 2, fig 22, pl. 4, figs 37–40.
Nesticus fagei – Gasparo & Thaler 2000: 32, figs 3–4. — Le Peru 2011: 364, fig. 630.
Ivesia fagei – Lehtinen & Saaristo 1980: 51.
Diagnosis
Proximal part of MA without process on outer edge, inner side of distal part of MA straight, curve between proximal and distal parts of MA equally rounded. Tegulum with longitudinal ridge stretching through entire surface, basal apophysis of tegulum triangular. Apical branch of dorsal paracymbium process curved in “S” shape, dorsomedian apophysis absent. Epigyne triangular in ventral view, protruding in lateral view. Spermathecae not reaching over vulvar lateral chitinous structures.
Type material
Not examined. The exact position of the type localities is not known and the surrounding area is at the moment inaccessible (for details see Distribution).
Material examined
BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA: Popovo polje, Bjelušica: 1 ♂ (CBSS /AR 3701-1), 1 ♀ (CBSS /AR 3701-2), 1 ♂ (CBSS /AR 3690), 26 Oct. 2015, leg. Martina Pavlek; 3 ♀♀, 1 juv.. ♂, 1 juv.., 26 Oct. 2015, leg. Vedran Sudar (CBSS /AR 3692); 1 ♀ (CBSS /AR 1510), 1 ♂, 1 juv.. ♂, 1 juv.. (CBSS /AR 1513), 16 Aug. 2004, leg. Roman Ozimec; 1 ♀, 4 Jun. 2014, leg. Martina Pavlek (CBSS /AR 3389).
Redescription
Male (CBSS/AR 3701-1)
Paracymbium with a well-developed dorsal and simple ventral process. Basal branch of dorsal process with straight upper rim, distal part longer and less sharp than in K. deelemanae gen. et sp. nov., more pronounced. Apical branch slender, curved in “S” shape, distal part acuminated and sharp (Figs 2B, 3E). Ventral process larger than in K. deelemanae gen. et sp. nov., broad and round, most of its surface transparent and with small membranous extension on rim. Dorsomedial apophysis absent (Fig. 3D). Tegulum with longitudinal ridge (in apical view) stretching through entire surface and reaching broad-based triangular basal apophysis (Figs 2B, 3F). Median apophysis well developed, V-shaped, distal arm reaching almost to the apical part of tegulum. Outer edge between proximal and distal part equally rounded, distal part of MA narrowing toward top, which ends bluntly with slightly serrated upper edge. Inner side of distal part of MA straight. Embolus, TTA p1 and TTA p2 of TTA similar to in K. deelemanae gen. et sp. nov. (Figs 2B, 3D).
Female (CBSS/AR 3701-2)
EPIGYNE. Slightly wider than long. Lateral lobes with oval depressions in posterior part, reaching middle of epigyne. Posterior epigyne border triangular in ventral view, made of two straight chitinous arches which flank depressions, come together in middle and after sharp inward turn form broad and pale convex tubercle (Figs 4B, 5 E–F), protruding in lateral view (Fig. 5H). Insemination ducts visible on both sides of epigyne in a form of chitinous curves (Figs 4B, 5 E–F).
VULVA. Lateral sides of vulva made of compact dark chitinous structures enclosed in firm transparent membrane (lateral pouches). Spermathecae oval-shaped, with shallow constriction in middle, narrower in upper part and less slender then in K. deelemanae gen. et sp. nov., located meso-apicaly behind dark chitinous lateral structures. Insemination ducts depart from bottom of spermathecae, make sharp turn outwards and continue to epigynal base. Two chitinous narrow, horn-like structures protrude from inner sides of dark chitinuos vulval structures, in apical direction, to empty middle part of vulva (Fig. 5G).
Distribution
This species was described based on the material collected by Kratochvíl in several caves in Herzegovina, on the north-west border of Popovo polje: Pećina kod Tamnicam and Jama za Jamskim vrhom near Belenići village and Pčelina pećina near Nevada village (Kratochvíl 1933). The type material is deposited in the National Museum in Prague (Ružička et al. 2005). The area where the type localities are is inaccessible at the moment because of the mine fields left after the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s. The species is known from only one more locality, Bjelušica (Dresco 1966; Kratochvíl 1936), a horizontal cave around 4 km north of Belenići village (Fig. 6B). The material for this redescription was collected there. The species is endemic for Bosnia and Herzegovina and the citation of ‘Montenegro’ in ‘The Spiders of Europe’ (Nentwig et al. 2016) is erroneous.
Natural history
Bjelušica is a small cave, around 150 m long. From the semi-dark entrance chamber departs a narrowing, 1 × 2 meters wide passage that leads to the main channel which, after the first few meters that are slightly lighter, is always in complete darkenss. The spiders were found right after the narrowing and all along the cave. They were mostly hanging from their nets on the walls and between the big stones on the cave floor, or freely walking on the walls of the cave. The temperature in the cave is around 13.5°C. In his paper with the description of K. fagei (Kratochvíl 1933), Kratochvíl also listed K. eremita at one of the type localities, Jama za Jamskim vrhom. Since it is not common for two species of the same genus to inhabit the same cave, we wanted to check the original material, but that was unfortunately impossible since the specimens deposited in the museum in Prague are without pedipalps (personal communication with Petr Dolejš, curator of the spider collection). In the last 20 years, researchers from CBSS have visited many caves around the town of Trebinje, in the Popovo polje area, and in the hilly region between Popovo polje and Croatia, but have so far recovered no K. eremita.
description: Published as part of Pavlek, Martina & Ribera, Carles, 2017, Kryptonesticus deelemanae gen. et sp. nov. (Araneae, Nesticidae), with notes on the Mediterranean cave species, pp. 1-27 in European Journal of Taxonomy 262 on pages 12-14, DOI: 10.5852/ejt.2017.262, http://zenodo.org/record/3823118