Hitobia meghalayensis Sankaran &amp; Caleb &amp; Sebastian 2021, comb. nov.
Creators: name: Sankaran, Pradeep M.
name: Caleb, John T. D.
name: Sebastian, Pothalil A.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2021
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Arachnida
Araneae
Gnaphosidae
Hitobia
Hitobia meghalayensis

description: <i>Hitobia meghalayensis</i> (Tikader &amp; Gajbe, 1976) comb. nov. (Figure 5) <i>Sergiolus meghalayensis</i> Tikader &amp; Gajbe, 1976: 186, figs 6–9 (&amp;female;). Tikader 1982: 449, figs 349–353 (&amp;female;). <i>Type material</i> Holotype female from INDIA: Meghalaya: Khasi Hills (25°35ʹ00.00ʹ’ N, 91°38ʹ00.00ʹ’ E; 1649 m alt), S. Biswas leg., 14 February 1973, repository NZC-ZSI, Kolkata (no register number), examined. <i>Justification of the transfer</i> Detailed examination of the type of <i>S. meghalayensis</i> revealed that it lacks diagnostic features of <i>Sergiolus</i> (see the previous paragraph on <i>H. lamhetaghatensis</i>), but instead, it has all of the diagnostic features of <i>Hitobia</i>, as in the case of previous species (compare Figure 5 (b–d) with Kamura 1992, figs 11, 16, 20, 25). Moreover, this species has three cheliceral promarginal and one retromarginal teeth (Tikader and Gajbe 1976), which is another diagnostic feature of <i>Hitobia</i> species (Kamura 1992, figs 12, 21). Based on these observations, we propose to transfer <i>S. meghalayensis</i> to <i>Hitobia</i>. <i>Diagnosis</i> Females of <i>H. meghalayensis</i> comb. nov. are closely related to the females of <i>Hitobia menglong</i> Song, Zhu &amp; Zhang, 2004 as both share inverted droplet-shaped spermathecae, but can be separated from the latter by W-shaped posterior epigynal margin (which is crescent-like in <i>H. menglong</i>) (compare Figure 5 (c–d) with Song et al. 2004, figs 87H–I). <i>Supplementary description</i> <i>Female</i> (holotype, Figure 5 (a–b)). Body length 9.78. Prosoma length 3.73, width 2.74. Opisthosoma length 6.05, width 3.64. Eye sizes and interdistances: ALE 0.12. AME 0.10. PLE 0.13. PME 0.11; AME–AME 0.09. AME–PME 0.18. PME–PLE 0.15. PME–PME 0.16. Length of chelicerae 1.12. Clypeus height at ALEs 0.11, at AMEs 0.16. <i>Epigyne</i> (Figure 5 (c–d)): epigynal plate sclerotised, roughly diamond-shaped, with diagonally oriented posterolateral sclerotised margins and W-shaped posterior epigynal margin (Figure 5 (c)). Spermathecae large sac-like (Figure 5 (d)). Fertilisation ducts narrow, diverging. <i>Male</i>. Unknown. <i>Remarks</i> The ZSI collection has one glass bottle for this species labelled as ‘holotype’ (5045/18) containing a female specimen in poor condition. The same bottle has a small glass vial containing the dissected epigyne.
description: Published as part of <i>Sankaran, Pradeep M., Caleb, John T. D. &amp; Sebastian, Pothalil A., 2021, On the taxonomic validity of Indian ground spiders: IV. Genera Apodrassodes Vellard, 1924, Herpyllus Hentz, 1832 and Sergiolus Simon, 1892 (Araneae: Gnaphosidae), pp. 2839-2857 in Journal of Natural History 54 (43 - 44)</i> on pages 2848-2851, DOI: 10.1080/00222933.2020.1871523, http://zenodo.org/record/5405189
description: {"references": ["Tikader BK, Gajbe UA. 1976. On some new species of spiders of the genus Sergiolus Simon from India (family: Gnaphosidae). Proc Indian Acad Sci. 84: 185 - 191.", "Tikader BK. 1982. Family Gnaphosidae. Fauna India (Araneae). 3: 295 - 536.", "Kamura T. 1992. Two new genera of the family Gnaphosidae (Araneae) from Japan. Acta Arachnologica. 41: 119 - 132. doi: 10.2476 / asjaa. 41.119.", "Song DX, Zhu MS, Zhang F. 2004. Fauna Sinica: Invertebrata. Vol. 39, Arachnida: Araneae: Gnaphosidae. Beijing: Science Press; p. 362."]}