Metasiro americanus Davis 1933
Creators: name: Clouse, Ronald M.
name: Wheeler, Ward C.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2014
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Arachnida
Opiliones
Sironidae
Metasiro
Metasiro americanus

description: Metasiro americanus (Davis, 1933)
(Figs. 3 A–C; 4A, D, G, J; 6A; 10E, F, I; 11E, F; 12B)
Siro americanus Davis, 1933
Parasiro americanus Hinton, 1938 Metasiro americanus Juberthie, 1960 Floridogovea americana Hoffman, 1963
Taxonomic notes: Giribet (2000) considered the synonymization of Metasiro and Floridogovea to have been done by Shear (1980), who noted the latter genus name but did not adopt it. Giribet and Kury (2007) formalized this synonymization and recombined Metasiro out of Sironidae into Neogoveidae. Shear (1980) examined the Sassafras Mt. collections by S. Peck and A. Fiske, and determined those specimens to be M. americanus, but the same has not been done with the Savannah River specimens, other than informally. Discussions and illustrations of M. americanus morphology can be found in these references, as well as in the original description, and as far as we can determine, they apply equally to all three species. Body and appendage article measurements are in Tables 5–6, respectively, and appendage article relative sizes are compared to similar data from Davis (1933) in Table 7.
Material examined: Males (n=112), females (n=131), and juveniles (n=74) collected at the type locality of Torreya State Park in the Florida panhandle (IZ-133791–2, IZ-133796–8, IZ-134557–8), nearby localities east of the Apalachicola River (IZ-133793–5, IZ-134492–3), and at Florida Caverns State Park (IZ-133808–13). Two specimens from collection IZ-133812 were dissected for genitalia (SPM 007418 and 7420), the latter of which was disarticulated for appendage measurements and SEMs. A total of 124 specimens covering all localities were sequenced for molecular analysis.
Diagnostic molecular characters: In our COI amino acid fragment (described above) no. 53 is isoleucine (not valine), no. 115 is methionine (rarely threonine; not leucine), and no. 248 is valine or leucine (not isoleucine). See Table 3.
M. americanus M. savannahensis M. sassafrasensis sp. nov. sp. nov. male male male male male male female male male female holotype holotype paratype paratype paratype holotype paratype paratype M. americanus M. savannahensis M. sassafrasensis
sp. nov. sp. nov.
male male male male
- holotype paratype paratype
7420 (from Davis, 7185 7176 range size
1933) (lengths)
Chelicer I (whole) 0.6 / 2.9 0.7 / 3.3 0.7 / 3.3 0.1 I (from crest) 0.4 / 1.9 0.4 / 1.9 0.4 / 2.0 0 II 0.8 / 5.0 0.8 / 5.0 0.9 / 5.6 0.1 III 0.2 / 5.7 0.2 / 4.9 0.2 / 4.1 0 Total length 1.6 1.4 1.7 1.8 0.4 Palp Trochanter 0.3 / 3.6 0.2 / 2.9 0.3 / 3.4 0.1 II 0.4 / 5.0 0.4 / 5.0 0.4 / 5.7 0 III 0.2 / 3.4 0.2 / 3.0 0.3 / 3.2 0.1 IV 0.3 / 4.0 0.3 / 4.0 0.3 / 3.9 0
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description: Published as part of Clouse, Ronald M. & Wheeler, Ward C., 2014, Descriptions of two new, cryptic species of Metasiro (Arachnida: Opiliones: Cyphophthalmi: Neogoveidae) from South Carolina, USA, including a discussion of mitochondrial mutation rates, pp. 177-201 in Zootaxa 3814 (2) on pages 184-186, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.3814.2.2, http://zenodo.org/record/250165