Taxonomic revision of the crab spider genus Epicadus Simon, 1895 (Arachnida: Araneae: Thomisidae) with notes on related genera of Stephanopinae Simon, 1895

Abstract

All species of Epicadus Simon, 1895 are reviewed and redescribed, including the previously unknown males of E. rubripes Mello-Leitão, 1924 and E. planus Mello-Leitão, 1932. A new diagnosis based on morphological characters is proposed for the genus. Three valid species of Epicadus are recognized: E. heterogaster (Guérin-Méneville, 1829); E. rubripes and E. planus. The following taxonomic changes are proposed: E. granulatus Banks, 1909 is considered incertae sedis, most likely belonging to a new genus; E. h. scholagriculae Piza, 1933 is considered a junior subjective synonym of E. heterogaster; E. pallidus Mello-Leitão, 1929 is considered a junior subjective synonym of E. rubripes Mello-Leitão, 1924; E. nigronotatus Mello-Leitão, 1940 is considered junior subjective synonym of E. planus Mello-Leitão, 1932. Species distributions were updated with new records in the Neotropics, including Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela, which makes Epicadus a genus of Neotropical distribution.

First record of Epicadus trituberculatus (Taczanowski, 1872) (Araneae, Thomisidae, Stephanopinae) in the Brazilian Northeast

“…In the Northeast Region of Brazil there are other species of Epicadus-E. caudatus (Mello-Leitão, 1929), E. heterogaster (Mello-Leitão, 1929), E. pulcher (Mello-Leitão, 1929), E. rubripes Mello-Leitão, 1924, andE. taczanowskii (Roewer, 1951)-but they have only been recorded for the state of Bahia (Machado et al 2015;Silva-Moreira and Machado 2016). The new record presented here suggests that the ecosystems in northeastern Brazil are poorly studied and probably harbor more species of spiders that are unrecorded or undescribed.…”

A taxonomic review of the crab spider genus Sidymella (Araneae, Thomisidae) in the Neotropics

“…The presence of cheliceral teeth, which was previously considered as a synapomorphy for this group (Ono 1988), was recovered as a plesiomorphy by Benjamin (2011), and this subfamily remains as the most controversial and the least studied group in Thomisidae; it has many genera in need of revision and a considerable number of species yet to be described (Benjamin 2011). Based on the work of Mello-Leitão (1929), subsequent efforts were made to update the taxonomy of some Neotropical stephanopines (Lise , 1981Bonaldo and Lise 2001;Machado et al 2015Machado et al , 2017Silva-Moreira and Machado 2016;Prado et al 2018). However, many genera are still known only from the original descriptions and poor diagnoses, and the accurate identification of many species is practically impossible.…”

A protocol for online documentation of spider biodiversity inventories applied to a Mexican tropical wet forest (Araneae, Araneomorphae)

“…The species Tmarus innotus Chickering, Onocolus eloaeus Lise and Enna sp01 were identified using the website standard views in collaboration with J. T. Lapp and A. Santos. Only the species Strophius hirsutus O. Pickard-Cambridge and Epicadus trituberculatus (Taczanowski) were identified using recent taxonomic revisions (Machado et al 2018;Silva-Moreira & Machado 2016) and Biologia Centrali-Americana (Pickard-Cambridge F. O. 1900; Pickard-Cambridge O.…”