A new species of Pionothele from Gobabeb, Namibia (Araneae, Mygalomorphae, Nemesiidae)

A peer-reviewed open-access journal ZooKeys 851: 17–25 (2019) A new species of Pionothele from Gobabeb, Namibia (Araneae, Mygalomorphae, Nemesiidae) 17 doi: 10.3897/zookeys.851.31802 RESEARCH ARTICLE http://zookeys.pensoft.net Launched to accelerate biodiversity research A new species of Pionothele from Gobabeb, Namibia (Araneae, Mygalomorphae, Nemesiidae) Jason E. Bond1, Trip Lamb2 1 Department of Entomology & Nematology, University of California Davis, Davis, California, USA 2 Department of Biology, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, USA Corresponding author: Jason E. Bond () Academic editor: Chris Hamilton | Received 20 November 2018 | Accepted 2 February 2019 | Published 3 June 2019 http://zoobank.org/894CD479-72A2-412D-B983-7CE7C2A54E88 Citation: Bond JE, Lamb T (2019) A new species of Pionothele from Gobabeb, Namibia (Araneae, Mygalomorphae, Nemesiidae). ZooKeys 851: 17–25. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.851.31802 Abstract The mygalomorph spider genus Pionothele Purcell, 1902 comprises two nominal species known only from South Africa. We describe here a new species, Pionothele gobabeb sp. n., from Namibia. This new species is currently only known from a very restricted area in the Namib Desert of western Namibia. Keywords Biodiversity, New species, Spider taxonomy, Pionothele, Nemesiidae, Mygalomorphae Introduction The nemesiid genus Pionothele Purcell, 1902 is a poorly known taxon comprising only two species described from southwestern South Africa. In Zonstein’s (2016) review of the genus, he redescribed and illustrated P. straminea Purcell, 1902 and described a second, new species P. capensis Zonstein, 2016. Similarities between female specimens of Pionothele and those in the genus Spiroctenus Simon 1889a suggest that some species described as the latter may be misidentified as the former (Zonstein 2016); consequently, Pionothele may be more widespread and diverse than is currently known. We describe herein a new species, Pionothele gobabeb sp. n., from the Namib Desert in Copyright Jason E. Bond,Trip Lamb. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. 18 Jason E. Bond & Trip Lamb / ZooKeys 851: 17–25 (2019) Figure 1. Aerial photograph of type locality. Kuiseb River bed in foreground (tree line); the interdune pitfall trap transect lies beyond the dunes (middle right of image). central western Namibia; the type locality at the Gobabeb Research & Training Center is about120 km southeast of the Atlantic coastal city of Walvis Bay. The description of this new species extends the distribution of Pionothele significantly northward, indicating that the genus may contain considerable undescribed diversity, particularly in the intervening areas. Habitat and ecology. Fifteen males were collected in pitfall traps after a rain event at Gobabeb; specimens were observed along interdune and gravel plain transects – two of six habitats monitored by long-term pitfall trapping (Henschel et al. 2003). Gobabeb lies adjacent to the Kuiseb River, an ephemeral drainage where the northern terminus of the Namib Sand Sea abuts the gravel plains of the Central Namib. Here dune, riparian, and gravel plain habitats occur in close proximity. Figure 1 illustrates the Gobabeb collecting locality. The single female specimen was collected from a subterranean burrow on a sandy slope. All nominal species of Pionothele have been collected from dune ecosystems (or close proximity thereof ). Species concept applied. This new species of Pionothele is delineated using a traditional morphological species concept wherein species are defined as those populations with qualitative phenotypic characteristics that differ in a discrete manner from other populations or groups. Abbreviations, materials and methods Institutional and quantitative morphological abbreviations used in this paper are defined as follows: A new species of Pionothele from Gobabeb, Namibia (Araneae, Mygalomorphae, Nemesiidae) 19 Institutional BME NMN CAS Bohart Museum of Entomology, Davis, California. National Museum of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, California. Quantitative morphological features The following features are explicitly defined and illustrated in Bond (2012): ANTd Cl, Cw AME, ALE, PME, PLE LBl, LBw PTl, PTw Bl PTLs, TBs STRl, STRw PLS TSrd, TSp, TSr ITC number of teeth on the anterior margin of cheliceral fang furrow. carapace length and width. Carapace length taken along the midline dorsal-most posterior position to the anterofrontal edge of the carapace (chelicerae are not included in length). Carapace width taken at the widest point. anterior median, anterior lateral, posterior median, and posterior lateral eyes, respectively. labium length and width taken from the longest and widest points, respectively. male palpal tibia length and width. palpal bulb length from embolus tip to the bulb base, taken in the ventral plane at its longest point. number of female prolateral patella and tibial spines leg III. sternum length and width. Sternum length from the base of the labium to its most posterior point. Width taken across the widest point, usually between legs II and III. posterior lateral spinneret number of tibiaI spines on the distal most retrolateral, prolateral, and midline retrolateral positions. inferior tarsal claw Measurement, characterization, and illustration of morphological features Format, descriptors, and morphological features measured/examined follows closely Bond (2012). Unique voucher numbers were assigned to all specimens (alphanumeric designations beginning with NMB); these data were added to each vial and can be used to cross-reference all images, measurements, and locality data. All measurements are given in millimeters and were made with a Leica MC205 dissecting microscope equipped with the Leica Analysis Suite Software. Lengths of leg articles were taken from the mid-proximal point of the articulation to the mid-distal point of the article (sensu Bond 2012, figs 11–16). Leg I and Leg IV article measurements are listed in the species 20 Jason E. Bond & Trip Lamb / ZooKeys 851: 17–25 (2019) description in the following order: femur, patella, tibia, metatarsus, tarsus. Carapace and leg coloration are described semi-quantitatively using Munsell® Color Charts (Windsor, NY) and are given using the color name and color notation (hue value/chroma). Digital images of specimens were made using a BKPlus Digital Imaging System (Dun Inc.TM, Richmond, VA) where images were recorded at multiple focal planes and then assembled into a single focused image using Helicon Focus (Helicon Soft, Ltd., Ukraine). The female genital region was removed from the abdominal wall and tissues dissolved using trypsin; spermathecae were exam (...truncated)