Coryssocnemis tarsocurvipes (Gonzalez-Sponga, 2003)

HUBER, BERNHARD A., 2009, BERNHARD A. HUBER (2009) Four new generic and 14 new specific synonymies in Pholcidae, and transfer of Pholcoides Roewer to Filistatidae (Araneae). Zootaxa, 1970, 64 - 68., Zootaxa 1977 (1), pp. 68-68 : 68

Coryssocnemis tarsocurvipes (González–Sponga, 2003) new combination

Carupania tarsocurvipes González –Sponga, 2003: 92–94; figs. 1 a–j.

Type material. Male holotype, 7♂ 41♀ paratypes from Venezuela, Estado Sucre, near Carupano (details in González– Sponga, 2003); not examined .

Justification of synonymy. Carupania tarsocurvipes clearly shows all the diagnostic characters of Coryssocnemis (Huber 2000) : simple procursus with dorsodistal black spine; male chelicerae with short, pointed apophyses and pair of very distinctive apophyses that are bent upwards.

This species is very similar to C. simla Huber from Trinidad. Specimens from Cascada el Chorro (only about 50 km SW of Carupano and thus very likely conspecific with C. tarsocurvipes ), have been sequenced and compared with unambiguous C. simla specimens from Trinidad (Astrin et al. 2006; assigned to C. simla by these authors based on morphological similarity). P–distances were unusually high for within–species comparisons, but at the same time lower than usual among–species distances (16S: 12.2%; COI: 8.3%), making this one of those cases where species delimitation was considered difficult by Astrin et al. (2006). Since this remains an ambiguous case, it seems preferable not to synonymize the two species until further studies at the level of populations are available.