Description of Seven New Species of the Genus Coelotes (Arachnida: Araneae: Amaurobiidae) from the Amami and the Tokara Islands, Japan

Abstract

-Following seven new species of the genus Coelotes from the Amami and the Tokara Islands in the Ryukyus are described: Coelotes oshimaensis, C. tokunoshimaensis, C tokaraensis, C insulanus, C. nasensis, C. akakinaensis, C. kakeromaensis.

A new synonymy of <I>Coelotes oshimaensis</I> Shimojana 2000 (Araneae: Agelenidae: Coelotinae) in Japan

“…Because these islands are far from each other, the above two species have been regarded as distinct. Nevertheless, we found out that both species have very similar genital organ forms and body appearances, and that the number of retromarginal cheliceral teeth is also the same based on the previous studies (Shimojana 2000;Ono 2008;Okumura 2022). The habitat of C. hachijoensis includes both foliage and the soil surface, as well as artificial environments, such as gaps in guardrails and sandbags (Fig.…”

“…As candidates for synonymous species, we focused on Coecoltes oshimaensis Shimojana 2000 andC. hachijoensis Ono 2008: the former is distributed on Amami-oshima Island and the Tokara Islands in southwestern Japan, while the latter on Hachijo Island, one of the Izu Islands, in eastern Japan.…”

Male description of <I>Coelotes nasensis</I> Shimojana 2000 (Araneae: Agelenidae) from Amami-ōshima Island, Japan

“…P-distance (the number of base differences per total number of analyzed bases) of unknown male specimens from female specimens of C. nasensis was from 0.017 to 0.050. Incidentally, the values compared with other coelotine species data that inhabit the same island were as follows; 0.107 from female of Coelotes oshimaensis (Shimojana 2000), and 0.142 from female of Coelotes akakinaensis (Shimojana 2000). Based on the above, we judged that the male specimens newly obtained are Coelotes nasensis.…”

“…Coelotes nasensis Shimojana 2000 is a medium-sized coelotine spider described from Amami-ōshima Island in the Ryukyu Islands, and only female specimens have been known up to the present. According to the original description, this species is characterized by having the epigyne resembling the face of a monkey, small and adjacent w-shaped epigynal teeth, and two retromarginal teeth on the chelicera (Shimojana 2000(Shimojana , 2003. In December 2017, the first author surveyed Amami-ōshima Island including the type locality of the species, and Kakeroma Island, located in the south of Amami-ōshima Island, collecting many unknown male specimens together with female specimens of C. nasensis.…”