Diversity of iron cave-dwelling mygalomorph spiders from Pará, Brazil, with description of three new species (Araneae)

Vol. 30 No. 4 (2017)
Published: 26 September 2017
arachnids, canga, caves, conservation, taxonomy
Abstract Views: 154
Read on Taylor & Francis: 0
Publisher's note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Authors

Rafael Fonseca-Ferreira
rafaelbioferreira@gmail.com
Biologia Comparada, Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, SP; Laboratório de Estudos Subterrâneos, Departamento de Ecologia e Biologia Evolutiva, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, São Carlos, SP, Brazil.
Robson de Almeida Zampaulo
Gerencia de Licenciamento Ambiental e Espeleologia, Vale SA, Nova Lima, MG, Brazil.
José Paulo Leite Guadanucci
Departamento de Zoologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade Estadual Paulista, Rio Claro, SP, Brazil.

Mygalomorph spiders are rarely found in caves and most of the records appear as accidental or restricted to small populations. The present study took place in iron formations in Carajás region, southeastern Pará state, eastern Brazilian Amazon rainforest. Each cave was sampled twice: dry season (from May to October) and wet season (from November to April). Of the 242 caves sampled, we found mygalomorphs in 98 (40%). The survey yielded 254 specimens, 223 (87.8%) juveniles. Of the 14 species recorded, nine were represented by adults: Dolichothele tucuruiense (Guadanucci, 2007), Hapalopus aymara Perdomo, Panzera & Pérez-Miles, 2009, Acanthoscurria geniculata (CL Koch, 1841), Theraphosa blondi (Latreille, 1804), Nhandu coloratovillosus (Schmidt, 1998), Fufius minusculus Ortega, Nagahama, Motta & Bertani, 2013, and three new are species described here: Guyruita metallophila n. sp., Hapalopus serrapelada n. sp., and Idiops carajas n. sp. Five other “morphospecies” were represented by juveniles only: Ummidia sp. (Ctenizidae), Paratropis sp. (Paratropididae), Bolostromus sp. (Cyrtaucheniidae), Diplura sp. (Dipluridae), and Idiophtalma sp. (Barychelidae). The high number of juveniles suggests two alternatives: some species could be using the hypogean environment as reproductive shelter; the hypogean environment is used as a refuge by immatures. Two species appear to be troglophiles: G. metallophila and H. aymara.

https://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:C92F29CB-4B9C-402D-8AA6-F8251DE49529.

Dimensions

Altmetric

PlumX Metrics

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Citations

How to Cite

Fonseca-Ferreira, R., de Almeida Zampaulo, R., & Leite Guadanucci, J. P. (2017). Diversity of iron cave-dwelling mygalomorph spiders from Pará, Brazil, with description of three new species (Araneae). Tropical Zoology, 30(4), 178–199. Retrieved from https://www.pagepress.org/biology/tz/article/view/50

PAGEPress has chosen to apply the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) to all manuscripts to be published.