Alpaida (Araneae: Araneidae) from the Amazon Basin and Ecuador: new species, new records and complementary descriptions

Abstract

All content of the journal, except where identified, is licensed under a Creative Commons attribution-type BY-NC. Species of Alpaida O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1889 are diurnal orb-weaving spiders occurring only in the Neotropical region. Currently, the genus is composed of 148 species (WORLD SPIDER CATALOG 2014), although it is estimated to contain about 200-300 species (LEVI 1988). Species of this genus are characterized by the glabrous body, orange to red carapace, abdomen and carapace without bristles; male palp with radix, embolus and terminal apophysis fused into one sclerite; mushroomshaped paramedian apophysis connected to conductor; epigynum usually represented by a transverse sclerotized structure, with posterior lips, a median scape and copulatory openings located on each side between plate and lips (LEVI 1988). Alpaida was revised by LEVI (1988), who dealt with 134 species, among which 94 were described as new. Many of the 40 previously known species had been erroneously transferred to Alpaida from different genera. Since LEVI's (1988) contribution only 11 species have been added to the genus: A. guto

New species of Alpaida (Araneae, Araneidae) from Rondônia, Brazil

“…Since the revision, ten contributions were made to the taxonomy of the genus, including the transfer and redescription of Alpaida tullgreni (Caporiacco, 1955) (Levi, 1993), the description of five males and one female of species previously known only from one sex (Buckup & Meyer, 1993;Rodrigues & Mendonça, 2011), and the description of 12 new species (Abrahim & Bonaldo, 2008;Santos & Santos, 2010;Buckup & Rodrigues, 2011;Braga-Pereira & Santos, 2013;Deza & Andia, 2014;Dierkens, 2014;Saturnino et al, 2015). In this paper we described a new species of Alpaida based on both sexes.…”

A new species of Alpaida (Araneae, Araneidae) from Southeastern Brazil

“…After Levi's work, a handful of papers about the genus were published, adding 11 species and one subspecies to the genus (Levi, 1992;Buckup & Meyer, 1993;Abrahim & Bonaldo, 2008;Framenau et al, 2009;Santos & Santos, 2010;Buckup & Rodrigues, 2011;Rodrigues & Mendonça Jr, 2011;Braga-Pereira & Santos, 2013;Dierkens, 2014;Deza & Andía, 2014;Poeta &Lise, 2015 andSaturnino et al, 2015).…”