Titanoleptes Kury & Bernabé 2023, gen. nov.
Creators: name: Kury, Adriano B.
name: Bernabé, Tiago
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2023
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Arachnida
Opiliones
Gonyleptidae
Titanoleptes

description: Titanoleptes gen. nov.
urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act: C662C684-A0C1-459C-A8B9-905D9E91CA23
“Undescribed genera SOD-01, SOD-02”— Kury et al. 2022: 79.
Etymology. From the Greek Τῑτάν (one of the titans, divine beings descending from the primordial deities) + leptes (truncation of generic name Gonyleptes), referring to the very large size of its species. Gender masculine.
Type species. Titanoleptes hyperion sp. nov.
Included species. Titanoleptes calcar (Roewer, 1913), Titanoleptes cupidensis (Soares & Soares, 1946), Titanoleptes eros sp. nov. and Titanoleptes hyperion sp. nov.
Diagnosis. Coxa IV of male without retrolateral apical apophysis (Fig. 16c), except in T. cupidensis (Fig. 20a). Trochanter IV of male armed with a strong, retrolateral, apical apophysis (Figs. 21a, c). Patella and tibia IV covered with yellow acuminate tubercles (Figs. 20d, 24b). Femur IV of male either substraight (Fig. 19a) or strongly curved to the midline on basal 1/ 4 in dorsal view (Figs. 17a, c). Tibia IV armed with rows of acuminate tubercles (Figs. 20d, 24b). VP of penis with ear-flaps small, triangular, ectal vertex connected but not fused with flange. Flabellum quadrangular, as a stylized shell, proximal sides gently arched, non-serrate, distal half extremely reduced, with distal sides coalesced into one, arched and deeply serrate (Fig. 22e).
Distribution (Figs 14–15). Southern Bahia State and Espírito Santo State. All four species of Titanoleptes occur in the WWF ecoregion NT0103 (Bahia coastal forests) and two subsets of two species each are distributed on opposite margins of the Doce River.
Internal and external relationships of the four species of Titanoleptes. At a first glance, one could easily identify two forms in Titanoleptes gen. nov.: (1) T. eros sp. nov. and T. cupidensis are gracile and have a median apophysis on free tergite III in both sexes, substraight femur IV, and naked glans; (2) T. hyperion sp. nov. and T. calcar are robust and lack an apophysis on free tergite III of males, have a heavily curved femur IV, and have a unique scutum covering the glans. The parapatrid pattern of these two pairs— T. eros + T. cupidensis and T. hyperion + T. calcar are found on opposite margins of the Doce River (Figs. 13–14)—is highly suggestive of a sister relationship between each of the members of these pairs, regardless of whether the pairs themselves form a more inclusive clade or not. This hypothesis, though, is not corroborated by any of the analyses. The cladistic analysis of Kury et al. (2022) explored different parameters to assess the arrangement of the four Titanoleptes in the phylogeny of Sodreaninae. The favored analysis using the setk script (with implied weights and K value ca. 12) resolved Titanoleptes as a sister clade of Friburgoia / Urodiabunus, with an internal branching sequence of T. eros, T. cupidensis, and then T. hyperion + T. calcar. IE settings of K = 1 and 5, plus equal weights, yielded the same result. However, Bayesian inference did not recover Titanoleptes at all, finding only the clade T. hyperion + T. calcar and then recovering T. eros and T. cupidensis in a trichotomy with the rest of the Sodreaninae. We have decided not to arrange the four species of Titanoleptes into two genera, despite the weak support for their monophyly.
Key to the species of Titanoleptes
1. Ocularium armed with two small spherical tubercles of lighter color contrasting with background (Figs. 16g, 27b); femur IV of male strongly curved to the median line at proximal one quarter, armed at least with two strong retrolateral spines (Figs. 17, 28); free tergite III unarmed in males, either unarmed (T. hyperion) or with median apophysis (T. calcar) in females (Figs. 16b, g, 27b).............................................................................................. 2
1’. Ocularium with two high erect spines concolor with background (Figs. 19f, 23c); femur IV of male substraight, without prominent retrolateral spines (Figs. 21a–d, 24a–d); free tergite III armed with a median apophysis in both sexes (Figs. 19b, h, 23 a, f).............................................................................................. 3
2. Body color mahogany with black reticle (Figs. 16b, g); tubercles of scutal area III strong, acuminate and contrasting dark brown (Figs. 16b, g); RD6 of male Fe IV straight (Fig. 16a); FT II-III of female with yellow cones (Figs 16g, h)................................................................................................ T. calcar (Roewer, 1913)
2’. Body color dark brown, almost black; tubercles of scutal area III small, rounded and contrasting pale yellow (Fig. 27b); RD6 of male Fe IV strongly curved (Fig. 27a); FT II-III of female entirely unarmed (Fig. 1f)............... T. hyperion sp. nov.
3. Cx IV of male with strong inner apical apophysis (Figs. 19b, c, 20a); Tr IV with strong apical inner apophysis (Fig. 20a).......................................................................... T. cupidensis (Soares & Soares, 1946)
3’. Cx IV of male unarmed internally (Figs. 23a, b); Tr IV with small apical inner apophysis................. T. eros sp. nov.
description: Published as part of Kury, Adriano B. & Bernabé, Tiago, 2023, Description of two new genera and five new species of clade K 92 from Bahia and Espírito Santo, southeastern Brazil (Arachnida, Opiliones, Gonyleptidae), pp. 401-434 in Zootaxa 5351 (4) on pages 415-418, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5351.4.1, http://zenodo.org/record/8391904