Weygoldtia hainanensis Zhu, Li & He, 2021

Zhu, Xiao-Yu, Wu, Shi-Yang, Liu, Yi-Jiao, Reardon, Chris R., Román-Palacios, Cristian, Li, Zheng & He, Zhu-Qing, 2021, A new species of whip spider, Weygoldtia hainanensis sp. nov., from Hainan, China (Arachnida: Amblypygi: Charinidae), Zootaxa 5082 (1), pp. 65-76 : 69-72

Weygoldtia hainanensis Zhu, Li & He sp. nov.

Figs. 4-8

Holotype. ECNU-IV-0002, adult male, Changjiang , Dongfang City, Hainan Island, China, 300 m a.s.l., rainforest, over a high cliff, 18-iii-2021, Zhu Xiao-Yu leg. COI gene sequence No. MZ 352109 .

Paratype. ECNU-IV-0001, adult female, same data as holotype. COI gene sequence No. MZ 352110 .

Measurements of both female and male are provided in Table 1 .

Carapace. Calamine blue with many tiny granulations eventually distributed at the surface. Anterior and posterior region bend downwards to the lateral eye, creating concave shape. Lateral and anteromedial eyes small, well developed and in grey and white coloration respectively. Curved carina presents between lateral eyes and carapace margin, and straight carina anterior to lateral eyes. Lateral ocular tubercles black, anteromedial eyes grey. Straight crest anterior to lateral eyes present. Three pairs of furrows reach the middle line; fovea is oval. Frontal margins with small granulations and 6 setae ( Fig. 4B ).

Sternum. Three well sclerotized segments. Tritosternum with round base, elongated and conical, about ten setae on basal region (more dense setae on basal region in female). Pair of setae close to apical setae. Tetrasternum rounded, convex, with four setae. Pentasternum rounded, convex, subequal to tetrasternum, with five setae. All setae on sternum rufous ( Fig. 5C ).

Abdomen. Flat, oblong and blue. Many tiny punctuations evenly distributed on the surface, smaller than those on the carapace. Only ten setae on male genital operculum (many short setae on female genital operculum). Ventral sac presents. Abdomen narrower than carapace ( Fig. 4B , 7B, 7C ).

Chelicera. Dorsum covered with many fine setae and six frontal setae (ectal view). All setae brown. Cheliceral furrow with four internal teeth. First distal tooth (upper) bifid, and Ia slightly bigger than Ib. Second tooth slightly bigger than the third one. Tooth length: IV> II> Ia> Ib> III. Claw with seven denticles (female has six denticles). The size of denticles gradually increases away from the tip ( Fig. 5A ).

Pedipalp. Blue with tips of spines red. Trochanter: with many rufous setae on antero-dorsal side, with two subequal ventral spines and two dorsal setiferous tubercles. Many long setae between spines at the same side, six setae near margin of the trochanter near coxa. Female with fewer setae than male. Femur: finely granulated. Four dorsal spines, decreasing in length. One short dorsal spine between spine I and spine II, three short dorsal spines between spine II and spine III, one short dorsal spine between spine III and spine IV, one short dorsal spine after spine IV distally. One prominent setiferous tubercle between spine I and proximal margin. Four ventral spines, spine I distal to spine II, half in length. Spine II to spine IV decreasing in length, small short ventral spine between each primary spine series. Spine II two thirds of spine I, spine III two thirds of spine II. Two setae on spine I. Several setae in postero-dorsal margin. Female has no secondary dorsal spines between dorsal primary spine series. Patella: finely granulated. Five dorsal spines decreasing in length. Prominent spine distal to spine I. Two short dorsal spines after spine V distally. Four ventral spines, I> II> IV> III. Spine II two thirds of spine I, spine III two thirds of spine II. One short ventral spine between spine I and spine II, in the middle, two short ventral spines after spine IV distally. One short ventral spine distal to spine I, one third in length. Many setae on the postero-dorsal side, opposite to spines. Tibia: Two large dorsal spine present with many rufous setae near the bottom of the spine, one ventral spine. Several setiferous tubercles at the antero-dorsal side of the tibia. Many setae on the postero-dorsal side, opposite to spines. Tarsus: Three small subequal dorsal blunt spines. The internal surface next to tibia covered with a fine line of small setae near base of the cleaning organ (that line of setae is much shorter in female). Many long setae randomly distributed throughout the segment. Ventral row of cleaning organ with 15-20 setae ( Fig. 6A, B ).

Legs. All setose, calamine blue. All setae are rufous. Leg I elongated, 26 segments in tibia, 45 segments in tarsus ( Fig. 4E ). Basitibia IV with four well sclerotized margins. Walking-leg tarsi with arolium ( Fig. 5D, E ). Difference in length shown in Table 1 . Distitibia IV trichobothria sc and sf series each with 10 - 11 trichobothria.

Color pattern. Pedipalp, carapace, abdomen, and legs mostly calamine blue. The blue on distal regions of legs is lighter, and gradually turns grey. Tarsus and claws on the pedipalp are in grey coloration. Chelicera brown, spines on the pedipalp black, tips light red. All setae are rufous and brown ( Fig. 4A, B ).

Male genitalia. Paired lobes covered ventrally by genital operculum. LoL1 cuspid with many small spiculate projections, most submarginal projection has the greatest length. LoL2 larger than LoL1 with hairy-like ends. The surface of LoD has many spiniform projections, smaller than those of LoL1. Surface of Fi has a large smooth area ( Fig. 8 ). Female gonopods were collapsed and could not be described properly.

Distribution: China (Hainan).

Etymology: This species is named after Hainan Island.

Natural history: Weygoldtia hainanensis sp. nov. is only found in karst topography of Hainan Island. Both males and females were collected in March at night (30°C and 75% humidity). The whip spiders were spotted on huge flat cliffs with deep narrow cracks. When disturbed and threatened, they moved rapidly into the cracks nearby, and sometimes jumped onto the ground to hide under fallen leaves. We found individuals distributed randomly on the cliff varying from 0.5–3.0 m in heights. They were tolerant to conspecific individuals, and sometimes could be found in close proximity around 30 cm to each other. They were found to co-occur with other arthropods, such as Mygalomorphae ( Cyriopagopus hainanus Liang et al. 1999 ), Thelyphonida O.P-Cambridge 1872, and Scolopendromorpha Latreille 1817. In the lab, they show preference to prey on the house crickets, Acheta domesticus Linnaeus 1758 . Their egg sac contains 12 eggs, about 1.5 mm in diameter. At 25°C, the egg development takes 113 days. The hatching praenymphae have white carapaces, light green abdomens, and light pink appendages ( Fig. 1E ). They stay on the back of the adult female for about 3 days. Then, they molt into protonymphae and change into gray color, about 3-4 mm in length ( Fig. 1D ).

Phylogenetic position. Higher-level phylogenetic relationships were equivalent between our study and the trees presented in Miranda et al. (2021a, b). The monophyly of major groups including the Charinidae (bootstrap=88%; posterior probability [pp hereafter]=0.84), Sarax (bootstrap=99%; pp=0.96) and Charinus (bootstrap=99%; pp=1) were highly supported as found in Miranda et al. (2021a). Phylogenetic relationships between congeneric species in Weygoldtia and Charinus were also similar between our study and the tree presented in Miranda et al. (2021a, b). Specifically, the reciprocal monophyly of the samples analyzed in this study and assigned to Weygoldtia hainanensis sp. nov. was recovered and highly supported (bootstrap=100%; pp=1). Furthermore, Weygoldtia hainanensis sp. nov. is consistently found nested within Weygoldtia , and this clade is highly supported by both Bayesian and maximum likelihood inference frameworks (bootstrap=100%; pp=1). However, the relationships within Weygoldtia were not resolved by both maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference approaches. For instance, while W. hainanensis sp. nov. is recovered to be sister of W. davidovi under maximum likelihood analyses (bootstrap support=86%), Bayesian analyses recovered a weakly supported single clade for both W. consonensis and W. davidovi (pp=0.55) ( Fig. 3 ).

Figures

FIGURE 1. Dorsal habitus of Weygoldtia hainanensis sp. nov. from Hainan, China. A: Female; B: Male; C: A female on the wall of a cliff; D: Immature; E: Female carrying hatching praenymphae.

FIGURE 3. Phylogenetic relationships of charinid whip spiders highlighting the topology of Weygoldtia hainanensis sp. nov. (boldfaced). Phylogenetic analysis inferred under maximum likelihood (A) and Bayesian inference (B) based on the molecular dataset of Miranda et al. (2021). Support values are based on 1,000 bootstrap replicates (A) or posterior probabilities (1 million generations and 10% post-burnin). Branch lengths in substitutions per site (see scale under trees). Only relationships between species of Charinidae are presented; other Amblypygi analyzed as outgroups are Damon diadema Simon 1876, Phrynus longipes Pocock 1894, Baalrog sbordonii Brignoli 1973 and Mastigoproctus giganteus Lucas 1835.

FIGURE 4. Weygoldtia hainanensis sp. nov. from Hainan, China. A: Female, dorsal; B: Male, dorsal; C: Female, ventral; D: Male, ventral; E: Leg I tibia and tarsus of an adult female, dorsal.

FIGURE 5. Weygoldtia hainanensis sp. nov. A: Male chelicera, ectal view; B: Pedipalp tarsus and claw, lateral view; C: Sternum, ventral view; D: Walking-leg tarsi with arolium, ectal view; E: Walking-leg tarsi with arolium, dorsal view.

FIGURE 6. A: Pedipalp, dorsal view; B: Pedipalp, ventral view.

FIGURE 7. Weygoldtia hainanensis sp. nov. A: Male genital operculum and gonopod, ventral view; B: Male genital operculum, ventral view; C: Female genital operculum, ventral view.

FIGURE 8. Male gonopod of Weygoldtia hainanensis sp. nov. from Hainan, China.A: Dorsal view; B: Detail of ornamentation of LoD, LoL 2, LoL 1, and Fi; C: Detail of ornamentation of LoD; D: Detail of ornamentation of LoL 1 (Details in Terminologies).