The goblin spider genus Heteroonops (Araneae, Oonopidae), with notes on Oonops

Related Titles

Series: American Museum novitates, no. 3672

By

Platnick, Norman I.

Dupérré, N. (Nadine),

Type

Book

Material

Published material

Publication info

New York, NY American Museum of Natural History c2009

Notes

Caption title.

"November 30, 2009."

The goblin spider genus Heteroonops is relimited to include those soft-bodied oonopids with anteriorly situated, posteriorly directed projections on the endites of males, and elongated, highly spinose pedipalps in females, and is hypothesized to be natively circum-Caribbean. The type species, H. spinimanus (Simon), has attained a pantropical distribution, has been known only from females, and has therefore been hypothesized to be parthenogenetic. Although the species may have some parthenogenetic populations, males have apparently been collected together with females twice, once in the Seychelle Islands and once in Florida. We therefore place Matyotia tetraspinosus Saaristo (a monotypic genus and species established for that Seychelle specimen) as the male (and hence a junior synonym) of H. spinimanus; Oonopinus hunus Suman, described from Hawaii, is also newly synonymized with H. spinimanus, which is newly recorded from Mexico, the Bahama Islands, Colombia, Madeira, Madagascar, the Marquesas Islands, the Cook Islands, Pitcairn Island, Fiji, New Caledonia, and Queensland. Four specific names are transferred to Heteroonops: Oonops singulus Gertsch and Davis (from Mexico), O. validus Bryant (from Hispaniola), O. castellus Chickering (from the Virgin Islands), and O. delegenus Chickering (from Puerto Rico); H. delegenus is placed as a junior synonym of H. castellus, and the female of H. validus is described for the first time. Ten new species are described: H. murphyorum from Costa Rica, H. andros from the Bahama Islands, H. spinigata from Jamaica, H. vega, H. iviei, and H. castelloides from Hispaniola, H. toro from Puerto Rico, H. croix from the Virgin Islands, H. saba from Saba and Montserrat, and H. macaque from Dominica. Because the status of Heteroonops as a genus separate from Oonops Templeton has been questioned, we present a redescription of the family's type species, Oonops pulcher Templeton, based on topotypical specimens from Scotland; it is unlikely that any of the plethora of New World species that have been assigned to Oonops are actually congeneric with O. pulcher.

Subjects

Arachnida , Caribbean Area , Classification , Heteroonops , Oonops , Spiders

Call Number

QL1 .A436 no.3672 2009

Language

English

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1206/690.1
OCLC: 472453348