Taxonomy of the genus Ischnocolus in the Middle East, with description of a new species from Oman and Iran (Araneae: Theraphosidae)

Abstract

Spider material collected from Oman and Iran revealed a new species of the genus Ischnocolus Ausserer, 1871, which is described as I. vanandelae sp. n. New records of I. jickelii L. Koch, 1875 from Saudi Arabia, Yemen and United Arab Emirates show a larger distribution of this species than previously known. The natural history of I. vanandelae sp. n. and I. jickelii is described and the rather unusual colour polymorphism of the latter is discussed. The genus now includes eight species, whose distribution is mapped.

http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:E5DBC693-8B29-4E80-BB82-938C20E19640

Keywords:

• Taxonomy
• spiders
• Mygalomorphae
• Oman
• Saudi Arabia
• United Arab Emirates

Acknowledgements

A. Zamani is grateful toward Soheyl Sami, Mojtaba Ezazi and Seyyed Mahdi Mousavi for field assistance and Diego Pádua for transporting the material. R. C. West gratefully thanks Priscilla van Andel, Christine Beahon-Riche, Johannes Els, Gary Feulner, Mick Gallagher, Martin Gamache, Mohamed Gazzali, Steffen Haller, Vitezslav Honsa, Martin Hüsser, Sithum Jayasinghe, Radan Kaderka, Peter Pastor, Hans Raaijmakers, Binish Roobas, Peter Roosenschoon, Roberto Sindaco, David Šťastný and Vojtěch Víta for providing specimens, photographs and natural history data used in this study. M. Moradmand is thankful to Hassan Salehi (Isfahan) for his field assistances and his brother Dr Mohammad Moradmand (Tehran) for providing facilities to visit remote areas in Baluchistan. I.Wendt thanks Patrick Schuhmacher and Mark Stockmann for natural history data and Cristina Gascó Martín for preparing micrographics of palpal bulbs. S. Huber thanks the following people who made collecting trips possible: to Sultanate of Oman, Peter and Sylvia Weygoldt (Freiburg University, Germany), Slavko and Lara Polak (Ljubljana, Slovenia), and Dr Ali bin Amer al Kiyumi (Director-General of Nature Conservation, Ministery of Regional Municipalities and Environment, for collection permissions); to Saudi Arabia, Peter and Sylvia Weygoldt, Dr Abdulaziz Abuzinada (former Secretary General of the National Commission for Wildlife and Development, NCWCD) for organizing formalities and providing collection permissions), Dr Eugène Joubert (IUCN Consultant at NCWCD for logistic support), and Dr Patrick Paillat and Jacky Judas (National Wildlife Research Centre in Taif), for their great hospitality and logistic support. We are thankful to curators for loan and repository of specimens (Antonio D. Brescovit, IBSP; Joachim Holstein, SMNS).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.