Carrhotus yunnanensis ( Song, 1991 ), 2020

Gordana, Grbić & Ambros, Hänggi, 2020, ADDITIONAL SPIDER RECORDS FROM MT. FRUŠKA GORA (SERBIA) WITH A FIRST INSIGHT INTO WINTER SPECIES, Arthropoda Selecta 29 (1), pp. 51-66 : 65

Carrhotus yunnanensis ( Song, 1991) comb.n.

Figs 18, 19.

Ptocasius yunnanensis Song, 1991: 165 , figs. 3A–D (D$); the holotype in Institute of Zoology , Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, not examined.

Carrhotus kevinlii Cao et Li , in Cao et al., 2016: 56, figs 9A– D, 10A–E (D#$); the types in Institute of Zoology , Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, not examined, syn.n.

COMMENTS. Ptocasius yunnanensis was described from the holotype female from Menglun, Mengla County, Yunnan, China. Another species, Carrhotus kevinlii Cao et Li, 2016 was recently described from the holotype male and four paratypes (two male and two female) taken from the close locality Xishunagbanna Nature Reserve situated in the same province Yunnan [ Cao et al., 2016]. The females of the both aforementioned species are identical in their general body morphology, as well as in the conformation of their copulatory organs. The carapace with a pair of dark brown patches on the posterior slope; abdomen with mid-dorsal, chevron-shaped dark brown markings; the epigyne with slitshaped copulatory openings and strongly sclerotized edges and a pair of pockets along its posterior margin; insemination ducts short and broad; spermathecae globular with its diameter as wide as the copulatory ducts (cf. figs 3A,C,D in Song [1991] with figs 10A, B, D in Cao et al. [2016]). Based on these morphological observations and taking into account that both species occur in the same province, it is safe to conclude that the species C. kevinlii is conspecific to C. yunnanensis and its name is to be synonymized with the latter one.

Acknowledgements. We are grateful to Dr Kailash Chandra, Director of the Zoological Survey of India for the moral support and providing necessary facilities to carry out the work. We are especially thankful to Prof Dinendra Raychaudhuri of the Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University, Narendrapur, West Bengal for depositing the studied specimens in the NZC-ZSI; the specimens were collect- ed as part of the All India Coordinated Project on Capacity Building in Taxonomy (AICOPTAX). He is also thanked for providing digital images of Bianor piratus . We thank Srabani Kayal for her kind assistance in obtaining SEM images. We thank the Forest Department officials of Andhra Pradesh and Nagaland States for their kind support. John Caleb thanks the American Arachnological Society for an Arachnological research grant from the Herbert Levi fund (HLM- FAR). Finally, our sincere thanks go to Dr Dmitri Logunov (Manchester, UK) for the constructive inputs to the ms, helping us to improve it greatly.