Cheiracanthium turiae Strand, 1917

Esyunin, Sergei L. & Zamani, Alireza, 2020, ‘ Conundrum of esoterica’: on the long-forgotten genus Eutittha Thorell, 1878, with new taxonomic considerations in Cheiracanthium C. L. Koch, 1839 (Araneae: Cheiracanthiidae), Journal of Natural History (J. Nat. Hist.) 54 (19 - 20), pp. 1293-1323 : 1311

Cheiracanthium turiae Strand, 1917

Eutittha montana Thorell, 1890, p. 368 (description of ♂ from INDONESIA: Sumatra, Padang; Dr O. Beccari leg. 1878; preoccupied in Cheiracanthium montanum L. Koch, 1877 ).

Chiracanthium (Sic!) turiae Strand, 1917, p. 72 (replacement name).

Cheiracanthium cf. turiae (Sic!): Deeleman-Reinhold 2001, p. 234, figs 286–293 (♂ ♀).

Comments

Currently, this species is reliably known only by one male, originally described from Sumatra ( Thorell 1890). The attribution of other specimens to C. turiae is tentative. According to Deeleman-Reinhold (2001, p. 234), ‘two representative species [ C. cf. turiae and C. cf. daquilium Barrion & Litsinger, 1995 ] are described below and the assignment to known species is preliminary. One well-represented species with large distribution is here described as C. cf. turiae . The material includes males from one locality in Thailand only and seems to deviate slightly in morphology from the male type specimen of C. turiae ; females were found from Thailand and Malaysia through to NE Australia; these females were found to be very uniform in all aspects studied’. The situation is complicated by the fact that ‘one of the examined females was taken at the type locality [ C. turiae ], Mt. Singalang in Sumatra. This specimen presents a taxonomic problem: in non-genitalic characters, it conforms with the male type from that locality and it is tempting to consider this to be a typical female turiae ’ ( Deeleman-Reinhold 2001, p. 236). This female was illustrated by Deeleman- Reinhold (2001: figs 294–295) as Cheiracanthium sp. Lastly, unlike Deeleman-Reinhold (2001), we consider Cheiracanthium andamanense ( Tikader, 1977) a distinct species (for more details see comments on C. andamanense ).

Deeleman-Reinhold (2001, p. 233) established and diagnosed the turiae species group for eight species distributed from Sumatra to eastern Australia: C. turiae , C. bantaengi Merian, 1911 , C. gracile L. Koch, 1873 , C. klabati Merian, 1911 , C. longimanum L. Koch 1873 , C. minahassae Merian, 1911 , C. sakoemicum Roewer, 1938 , and C. soputani Merian, 1911 . In our opinion, Clubiona andamanensis Tikader, 1977 should also be included in this group. According to Deeleman-Reinhold (2001), none of the species of this group is conspecific with Eutittha .