Priscula azuay Huber & Meng & Dupérré & Astrin & Herrera 2023, sp. nov.
Creators: name: Huber, Bernhard A.
name: Meng, Guanliang
name: Dupérré, Nadine
name: Astrin, Jonas
name: Herrera, Mauricio
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2023
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Arachnida
Araneae
Pholcidae
Priscula
Priscula azuay

description: Priscula azuay Huber sp. nov.
urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act: 7433AF78-D32F-4BED-810D-55A2102A705C
Figs 5A–B, 8–11
Diagnosis
Distinguished from known congeners by details of procursus(Fig. 9A–C; distinctive dorsal distal membrane larger than in similar P. espejoi sp. nov.; short distal ventral sclerite; without retrolateral process), genital bulb (Fig. 9D–F; main bulbal process long and slender, gradually narrowing at tip), epigynum (Fig. 11A– B; in lateral view without anterior bulge, similar to P. llaviucu sp. nov. but posterior bulge weaker than in P. llaviucu), and female internal genitalia (Fig. 10C; pore plates roughly triangular, narrower anteriorly than posteriorly and converging anteriorly – apparently indistinguishable from P. espejoi). From P. espejoi also distinguished by male chelicerae (Fig. 10A–B; frontal apophyses in ‘regular’ more proximal position).
Etymology
The species name is derived from the type locality, noun in apposition.
Type material
Holotype ECUADOR – Azuay • 1 ♂; between Guayaquil and Cuenca, ‘loc. 2’; 2.706° S, 79.435° W; 2400 m a.s.l.; 21 Sep. 2021; B.A. Huber and M. Herrera leg.; MECN-ARAC-26-T.
Paratypes ECUADOR – Azuay • 1 ♂, 1 ♀; same collection data as for holotype; MECN-ARAC-27-T, in ZFMK Ar 24098.
Note
The female paratype is assigned with some hesitation to this species. Its genetic distance to the holotype is 9.3%, while its distance to an unambiguous P. espejoi sp. nov. male is only 7.1%. However, two other sequenced females collected at the same locality had a much lower distance to the P. espejoi male (0.0– 0.2%); those females are thus considered conspecific with the P. espejoi male, and the single female described here is tentatively assigned to P. azuay sp. nov.
Description
Male (holotype)
MEASUREMENTS. Total body length 6.2, carapace width 2.4. Distance PME–PME 200 µm; diameter PME 230 µm; distance PME–ALE 130 µm; distance AME–AME 30 µm; diameter AME 65 µm. ALE and PLE larger than PME (diameters 270 µm). Leg 1: 48.8 (12.5+1.1 +12.3 +20.0 +2.9), tibia 2: 9.5, tibia 3: 6.9, tibia 4: 9.2; tibia 1 L/d: 52.
COLOR (in ethanol). Carapace pale ochre-yellow, with brown median mark and lateral bands, ocular area and clypeus also dark brown; sternum brown with some lighter marks; legs ochre-yellow, with dark rings subdistally on femora and proximally and subdistally on tibiae; abdomen gray, dorsally and laterally densely covered with black marks and small white marks in-between, ventrally with distinct brown plate in front of gonopore.
BODY. Habitus as in Fig. 5A. Ocular area raised, without hump on posterior side, with stronger hairs at median side of each ocular triad. Deep thoracic groove. Clypeus unmodified except sclerotized rim. Sternum wider than long (1.55/1.15), unmodified.Abdomen higher than long, dorso-posteriorly rounded.
CHELICERAE. As in Fig. 10A–B, with short entapophyses, pair of small frontal apophyses in relatively proximal position, without stridulatory ridges.
PALPS. As in Fig. 8A–C; coxa unmodified, trochanter with low whitish rounded ventral protrusion, femur large, proximally with distinct retrolateral process, ventrally without process at half-length, distal ventral rim protruding, in ventral view with wide excavation; patella ventrally reduced to strongly sclerotized narrow rim; tibia small relative to femur; procursus (Fig. 9A–C) dorsally with small subdistal hump, distally with distinctive membranous elements and short ventral (slightly prolateral) spine; genital bulb (Fig. 9D–F) with distinctive process on proximal sclerite, with whitish area on retrolateral-ventral side, large spiraling main bulbal process.
LEGS. Without spines; with curved hairs on metatarsi 1–3, some weakly curved hairs also on tibiae 1–2; with few short vertical hairs; retrolateral trichobothrium of tibia 1 at 5%; prolateral trichobothrium present on all leg tibiae; tarsi without regular pseudosegmentation but rather with many indistinct platelets.
Male (variation)
Tibia 1 in second male: 13.5.
Female
In general similar to male (Fig. 5B), but clypeus rim not sclerotized, hairs between eye triads shorter. Tibia 1: 6.8. Epigynum (Fig. 11A–B) main anterior plate trapezoidal, in lateral view anteriorly not protruding. Internal genitalia (Figs 10C, 11C–D) with pair of triangular pore plates converging anteriorly.
Distribution
Known from type locality only, in Azuay Province, Ecuador (Fig. 4A).
Natural history
The spiders were found in a tunnel under the road. In the neighboring forest, we found P. espejoi sp. nov.
description: Published as part of Huber, Bernhard A., Meng, Guanliang, Dupérré, Nadine, Astrin, Jonas & Herrera, Mauricio, 2023, Andean giants: Priscula spiders from Ecuador, with notes on species groups and egg-sac troglomorphism (Araneae: Pholcidae), pp. 1-63 in European Journal of Taxonomy 909 on pages 15-19, DOI: 10.5852/ejt.2023.909.2351, http://zenodo.org/record/10462860