Endeis aff. mollis ( Carpenter, 1904 )

Sabroux, Romain, Hassanin, Alexandre & Corbari, Laure, 2022, Sea spiders (Arthropoda: Pycnogonida) collected during the Madibenthos Expedition from Martinique shallow waters, European Journal of Taxonomy 851 (1), pp. 1-141 : 72-74

Endeis aff. mollis ( Carpenter, 1904)

Fig. 18

Phoxichilus mole Carpenter, 1904: 182–183 , figs 1–7.

Phoxichilus mollis – Carpenter 1907: 98. — Loman 1908: 77–78.

Endeis mollis – Calman 1923: 293–294, fig. 16; 1927: 408; 1938: 160. — Stock 1951: 17–18, figs 23–24; 1957: 85–86; 1965: 31; 1966a: 54; 1975a: 1083–1085; 1975b: 76; 1986: 440; 1994: 19 (list), 68; 1997: 407. — Barnard 1954: 130–132, fig. 21. — Bourdillon 1954a: 4–8, figs 1–3. — Child 1977a: 441; 1979: 66; 1988a: 20–21; 1991: 144–145. — Nakamura & Child 1983: 41; 1988a: 664. — Arnaud 1987: 52. — Munilla 1994: 110. — Arango 2001: 656; 2002: 115, 120, tab. 1, figs 2–4 (phylogeny); 2003b: 2761, 2765, tab. 2, fig. 15. — Chimenz Gusso & Lattanzi 2003: tab. 1. — Paulay et al. 2003: appendix (list). — Bamber 2004: tab. 2; 2007: 256 (list). — Veena et al. 2008: 17–19, tab. 1, figs 3–5. — Müller & Krapp 2009: 115 (key), 117–119, 133, 137 (list), tab. 1, fig. 62. — Krapp & Viquez 2011: 204, tab. 1. — Gul & Ghani 2012: 206. — Sabroux et al. 2017: appendices 1–2, figs 3–5 (phylogeny); 2019b: fig. 3. — Dietz et al. 2018: 9. — Lucena & Christoffersen 2018a: 108. — Lucena et al. 2019: tab. 1. — Wang et al. 2021: 6.

Endeis cf. mollis – Sabroux et al. 2019b: 1530, tab. 1, fig. 3.

Type material

Endeis mollis ( Carpenter, 1904) . Type(s): unknown. Type locality: Cheval Paar, Sri Lanka.

Material examined

MARTINIQUE • 1 ♀; Baie de Fort-de-France ; 14°32.6ʹ N, 61°04.7ʹ W; depth 0–1 m; 6 Sep. 2016; st. AM002; MNHN-IU-2016-838/ MK411153 • 1 ♂ ov.; same collection data as for preceding; MNHN- IU-2016-565/ MK411116 • 2 ♀♀; same collection data as for preceding; MNHN-IU-2017-216 • 1 ♀; same collection data as for preceding; MNHN-IU-2017-217/ MK411200 .

Remarks

The general morphology of Martinique specimens corresponds well to the description in Carpenter (1904), as well as that in Müller & Krapp (2009), including the distal spiny tubercle on the lateral processes. However, these specimens are much smaller than other records (the trunk is about half as long as indicated in Müller & Krapp 2009), the ocular tubercle and lateral processes are smaller, and the number of observed cement gland pores is 13 rather than 19 as mentioned by Müller & Krapp (2019). The CO1 barcoding tree of Sabroux et al. (2019b) showed a sister-group relationship with a specimen of Endeis mollis from Caribbean Colombia identified by Arango & Wheeler (2007), although the genetic distance is very high (p-distance = 0.157; see Appendix). It is therefore probably another species than E. mollis , but due to the complexity of taxonomy within Endeis , we refrain from describing it as a new species as long as a review for the genus is not available. All specimens were found at the same station, at the entrance of Baie de Fort-de-France.

Distribution

Endeis mollis is a commonly found pantropical species recorded from the Tropical West Atlantic (Caribbean, Surinam, Brazil), West Africa (Occidental Sahara, off Guinea, Nigeria), Indian Ocean ( South Africa, Madagascar, Somalia, Red Sea, Suez, Oman, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Christmas Islands, Philippines) and the West Pacific ( Australia, Japan mainland, Ryukyu Islands, New Caledonia, Guam, Marianas Islands, Polynesia). There is only one record from the Western Mediterranean, north of Tunis.

Depth range

0– 105 m.

Figures

Fig. 18. Endeis aff. mollis (Carpenter, 1904), ♂, MNHN-IU-2016-565. A. Body, dorsal view. B. Body, lateral view (same scale as A). C. Oviger. D. Last two oviger articles. E. Third leg.