Tullgrenella morenensis
Creators: name: Marta, Kimberly S.
name: Bustamante, Abel A.
name: Hagopián, Damián
name: Teixeira, Renato A.
name: Brescovit, Antonio D.
name: Valiati, Victor H.
name: Rodrigues, Everton N. L.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Arachnida
Araneae
Salticidae
Tullgrenella
Tullgrenella morenensis

description: morenensis group
Species included. Tullgrenella morenensis (Tullgren, 1905), T. guayapae Galiano, 1970, T. brescoviti Estol, Marta & Rodrigues, 2020, T. didelphis (Simon, 1886), T. musica (Mello-Leitão, 1945) and T. corrugata Galiano, 1981.
Diagnosis. This species group can be distinguished by the following putative synapomorphies: male palp with the globose membranous process of tegulum, that is higher than the embolar base, projecting dorso-prolaterally (Figs 2F, 4A, 6A–C, 8C, 10C, 12C, 14C, 16C, see purple arrow); embolus of left palp originating from 8 o’clock, the pars pendula usually accompanying at the middle part of embolus, and the cradle-shaped conductor (Figs 2F, 4A, 6A–C, 8C, 10C, 12C, 14C, 16C); females with the monoplanar spiral on a flat epigynum (Figs 5A, 7A–E), and the copulatory ducts in double-looped spirals (Figs 5A, 7A–E, 9C–D, 11C–D, 13C–D, 15C–D, 17C–D).
Distribution. Bolivia (Colomí, La Paz, and Cochabamba), Uruguay (Cerro Largo and Maldonado), Brazil (Pará, São Paulo, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul), and Argentina (Buenos Aires, Jujuy, Salta, Tucumán, Santiago del Estero, Catamarca, Córdoba, and Chubut) (Fig. 50).
Natural history. Spiders in this species group can be considered shrubs and soil/grassland habitat. Galiano (1981) observed that individuals of T. guayapae were collected in shrubs, or undergrowth, close to the ground, where they were taking refuge in broad daylight in Argentina. Tullgrenella guayapae were found associated with rocks and collected manually in a fragment of mountains, and other individuals were collected with a beating tray followed by manual collection. Some individuals of T. guayapae were collected with a trawl in scrub close to a rice plantation in southern Brazil, i.e., it was not associated with agriculture, but with grasslands. In the same group, T. brescoviti was collected in the Puna grassland ecoregion, more than 3600 m a.s.l. The Puna is characterized by a biome of montane grasslands and shrublands; it is found in the central Andes Mountains of South America (Estol et al. 2020). According to the regionalization and geographic aspects in which they occur, and when comparing the diagnoses of morphological characteristics of genitalia, it is possible to note that this species group has differentiation between stratum types. According to Morrone (2014), biogeographic regionalization is based on the identification of endemic or characteristic taxa, constituting natural biotic hierarchies that synthesize the evolutionary/ecological history of the areas. Another observation is that the species T. morenensis and T. guayapae occur sympatrically in the Chacoan–Brazilian subregions and South America Transitional Zone (Fig. 50). The variation in altitudinal occurrence of this species group is 7–4012 m a. s. l. (Fig. 50).
description: Published as part of Marta, Kimberly S., Bustamante, Abel A., Hagopián, Damián, Teixeira, Renato A., Brescovit, Antonio D., Valiati, Victor H. & Rodrigues, Everton N. L., 2024, Taxonomic revision of the jumping spider genus Tullgrenella Mello-Leitão, 1941 (Araneae: Salticidae: Freyina), pp. 1-71 in Zootaxa 5411 (1) on pages 8-10, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5411.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/10675788