Crossopriza semicaudata
Creators: name: Huber, Bernhard A.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2022
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Arachnida
Araneae
Pholcidae
Crossopriza
Crossopriza semicaudata

description: Crossopriza semicaudata (O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1876)
Figs 353A, 574–607
Pholcus semicaudatus O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1876: 565.
Crossopriza semicaudata – Simon 1893: 477. — Wiehle 1933: 244, fig. 3b.
Holocnemus semicaudatus – Simon 1907: 5.
Probable misidentification (see Remarks below)
Crossopriza semicaudata – Denis 1945: 8, fig. 9.
Remarks
Pickard-Cambridge (1876) noted that this species was common in ruins near Cairo and Thebes (= Luxor) but did not specify the number of specimens actually available to him. The only specimen presumably originating from the type series I could locate is the lectotype below. The label says “ lectotype ” but this designation was never published; therefore, the lectotype is formally designated herein. The exact geographic origin of this particular specimen (Cairo or Luxor) is unknown.
Denis (1945) published a credible record from Egypt, Luxor, but I could not locate his specimens (they do not seem to be at the MNHN) and his only figure (of a palp) does not show C. semicaudata. Confusingly, this same figure appears again as figure 10 in Deeleman-Reinhold & van Harten (2001), supposedly showing the palp of C. pristina (which is also wrong).
The specimens from Chad below are here thought to originate from Bardaï, even though the labels say only “ massif du Tibesti ”. In 1965, the collector Max-Yves Brandily accompanied the ethnomusicologist Monique Brandily who made recordings in the Tibesti Mountains.According to the locality data attached to each recording (Centre de Recherche en Ethnomusicologie 2020) they worked in Bardaï in July and in October 1965.
Diagnosis
Easily distinguished from congeners by details of male palp (Figs 579–584; procursus with distinctive prolateral process, ventral sclerite with proximal ventral process; distal bulbal sclerite simple and flat, without ventral apophysis); also by male chelicerae (Figs 585–586; medially directed apophyses and enlarged hair bases) and female genitalia (Figs 587–593; epigynum short and wide as in C. pristina, but without distinct median internal structure and pore plates farther apart).
Type material
Lectotype (designated herein) EGYPT • 1 ♂, examined; Cairo or Luxor (see Remarks above); label data: “ Pholcus (= Crossopriza) semicaudata OPC, Egypt, Lectotype ♂, loan 3846, B 53619 [or 536A?]”; Jan.–Apr. 1864; O. Pickard- Cambridge leg.; HECO.
Other material examined
EGYPT • 3 ♀♀; Luxor; 25.73° N, 32.60° E; 2 Nov. 1996; P. Jäger leg.; SMF • 1 ♂; Luxor, near airport; 15 Nov. 1996; P. Jäger leg.; in house; SMF • 3 ♂♂, 4 ♀♀, 1 juv.; 5 km N of Aswan; 24.13° N, 32.89° E; 8 Jan. 1987; V. and B. Roth leg.; on sand dunes; CAS 9027139.
SUDAN • 1 ♂, 1 ♀; Kassala (Wilāyat Kassalā), New Halfa; 21.80° N, 31.37° E; 1 Aug. 2016; M. Siyam leg.; in house; ZFMK Ar 22430, Ar 22431 • 1 ♂, 1 ♀; Northern (Wilāyat aš-Šamāliyya), Dongola; 19.17° N, 30.47° E; 9 Jun. 2016; M. Siyam leg.; ZFMK Ar 22432, Ar 22433 • 2 ♂♂, 2 ♀♀; River Nile (Wilāyat Nahr an-Nīl), Atbara; 17.70° N, 34.00° E; 29–31 Oct. 2016; M. Siyam leg.; in house; ZFMK Ar 22434 to Ar 22437 • 1 ♂; Khartoum (Wilāyat Ḵarṭūm), Khartoum; 15.6° N, 32.5° E; Nov. 1964; J.S. Cloudsely-Thompson leg.; MRAC 127505 • 1 ♀; same collection data as for preceding; Jan.–Mar. 1962; MRAC 121719 • 1 ♂; Gezira (Wilāyat al-Jazīra), Hasaheisa; 14.73° N, 33.35° E; 14 Apr. 2007; M. Siyam leg.; ZFMK Ar 22438.
CHAD • 2 ♂♂, 6 ♀♀; Tibesti Mountains, Bardaï (see Remarks above); 21.35° N, 17.00° E; Jul.–Oct. 1965; Y. Brandily leg.; MRAC 132920 • 8 ♂♂, 33 ♀♀ (partly used for SEM); same collection data as for preceding; MRAC 132959 • 6 ♀♀, 16 juvs; same collection data as for preceding; MARC 132967.
Redescription
Male (Khartoum, MRAC 127505)
MEASUREMENTS. Total length 3.4, carapace width 1.4. Distance PME–PME 80 µm; diameter PME 100 × 120 µm; distance PME–ALE 30 µm; diameter AME 95 µm; distance AME–AME 30 µm. Leg 1: 35.7 (10.3 + 0.6 + 9.4 + 13.3 + 2.1), tibia 2: 6.3, tibia 3: 4.7, tibia 4: 5.6; tibia 1 L/d: 59; femora 1–4 diameters: 0.20, 0.18, 0.17, 0.17.
COLOR (in ethanol). Carapace ochre-yellow; carapace pit anteriorly light brown; sternum brown with darker radial marks; legs ochre-yellow, without darker rings, with black lines on femora and tibiae (cf. Figs 577–578); abdomen ochre-gray, with few indistinct dark marks dorsally; ventrally with black median band, partly disrupted.
BODY. Habitus very similar to C. sahtan sp. nov. (cf. Fig. 391). Ocular area slightly raised. Deep thoracic pit and pair of furrows diverging from pit toward posterior margin. Clypeus unmodified, only rim more sclerotized than in female. Sternum wider than long (1.0/0.7), unmodified. Abdomen slightly elongated, dorso-posteriorly angular. Gonopore with four epiandrous spigots (Fig. 606); ALS with one widened spigot and one pointed spigot; PMS with two pointed spigots (Fig. 607).
CHELICERAE. As in Figs 585–586, distally with pair of frontal apophyses provided with one large modified cone-shaped hair each (Fig. 598); distance between tips of modified hairs 90 µm; with ~12 enlarged hair-bases on each side (Fig. 599); lateral stridulatory ridges distinct (Fig. 599; distances between ridges ~4.5 µm), clearly visible in dissecting microscope.
PALPS. As in Figs 574–576; coxa with low retrolateral hump; trochanter barely modified; femur distally strongly widened, with rounded ventral protrusion, proximally with prolateral stridulatory pick, with very indistinct retrolateral transversal line, without retrolateral proximal process; femur-patella joints close together, barely shifted toward prolateral side; tibia-tarsus joints shifted toward retrolateral side; tarsus without macrotrichia; tarsal organ capsulate (Fig. 602); procursus (Figs 579–581) short and straight, proximally on prolateral side with strong hump set with numerous long hairs, dorsal hairs mostly straight, some weakly curved, procursus tip with ventral sclerite with proximal ventral process, distinctive prolateral process, and semitransparent retrolateral-dorsal flap; with hair-like process on retrolateral side (arrow in Fig. 596); genital bulb (Figs 582–584) with simple basal sclerite connected to distal (main) sclerite, sperm duct opening on prolateral side (arrow in Fig. 597); distal sclerite simple and flat, with semitransparent ventral process, without retrolateral ridge, without prolateral apophysis or ridge.
LEGS. Femur 1 with single row of ~25 ventral spines; without curved hairs; few vertical hairs; retrolateral trichobothrium of tibia 1 at 4%; prolateral trichobothrium absent on tibia 1, present on other leg tibiae; tarsal pseudosegments very indistinct, irregular except 1–2 at tip.
Male (variation)
Tibia 1 in 16 males (incl. lectotype): 8.3–12.1 (mean 10.0); lectotype smaller (carapace width 1.25), with shortest tibia (8.3) and fewer spines on femur 1 (~18). More recently collected specimens with distinct pattern of dark and whitish marks dorsally on abdomen (similar C. sahtan sp. nov., cf. Fig. 391); ventral pattern behind gonopore variably distinct, with 2–4 longitudinal bands often not clearly separate.
Female
In general similar to male but without spines on legs, without stridulatory files on chelicerae (Fig. 600), and with stridulatory organ consisting of pair of weakly sclerotized but distinct processes posteriorly on carapace (arrows in Fig. 595) and pair of small light brown plates anteriorly on abdomen. Tibia 1 in 46 females: 7.0–10.2 (mean 8.8). Epigynum as in Figs 589–590; main epigynal plate semicircular, medially protruding; with pair of large pockets close to median line (distance between pockets 40 µm); internal sclerotized arc variably visible in uncleared specimens; posterior plate relatively large but mostly weakly sclerotized except frontally laterally. Internal genitalia (Figs 587–588, 591–593) with oval pore plates, dorsal arc weakly sclerotized laterally, ventral arc medially barely modified.
Natural history
Several specimens were collected in houses, suggesting that this is at least partly a synanthropic species. At Dongola, spiders were collected from webs among palm trees (M. Siyam, pers. com., Apr. 2021).
Distribution
Widespread in NW Africa (Egypt, Chad, Sudan) (Fig. 353A).
description: Published as part of Huber, Bernhard A., 2022, Revisions of Holocnemus and Crossopriza: the spotted-leg clade of Smeringopinae (Araneae, Pholcidae), pp. 1-241 in European Journal of Taxonomy 795 (1) on pages 149-155, DOI: 10.5852/ejt.2022.795.1663, http://zenodo.org/record/6299150