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Issue: Vol. 5757 No. 1: 3 Feb. 2026
Type: Article
Published: 2026-02-03
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5757.1.1
Page range: 1-25
Abstract views: 11
PDF downloaded: 0

New data on Indian nursery-web spiders (Araneae: Pisauridae)

Division of Arachnology; Department of Zoology; Sacred Heart College; Thevara; Cochin; Kerala 682 013; India
Division of Arachnology; Department of Zoology; Sacred Heart College; Thevara; Cochin; Kerala 682 013; India
Life Department; Oxford University Museum of Natural History; Oxford; OX1 3PW; United Kingdom
Department of Zoology; University of Kerala; Kariavattom; Thiruvananthapuram; Kerala 695 581; India
Araneae Kerala new species redescription synonymy taxonomy type material

Abstract

Updated data on Indian nursery-web spiders of the genera Dendrolycosa Doleschall, 1859, Euprosthenops Pocock, 1897, Hygropoda Thorell, 1895a, Perenethis L. Koch, 1878, and Polyboea Thorell, 1895b are presented here. The following new synonymy is recognised: Dendrolycosa bobbiliensis (Reddy & Patel, 1993) syn. nov. is synonymised with D. robusta (Thorell, 1895). The validity of Dendrolycosa gitae (Tikader, 1970), D. sahyadriensis Sudhin, Sen & Jäger, 2023, and D. stauntoni Pocock, 1900 is discussed. The possible synonymy of Dendrolycosa sahyadriensis with D. gitae, as well as that of D. gitae with D. spadicaria (Simon, 1897a), and Polyboea zonaformis (Wang, 1993) with P. vulpina Thorell, 1895 are discussed. Euprosthenops ellioti (O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1877) is redescribed and illustrated based on its type material, and the vulva of the genus is illustrated for the first time. A lectotype is designated for Hygropoda gracilis (Thorell, 1891), which is redescribed based on the type and freshly collected material. A new species, Hygropoda kannimara Sankaran sp. nov. is described and illustrated based on male and female specimens collected from the southern Indian state of Kerala. Redescriptions of Perenethis sindica (Simon, 1897) and P. vulpina based on freshly collected material are provided, and doubt is cast on the possible synonymy of the former species with P. venusta L. Koch, 1878. Finally, discusion about the type locality of Perenethis dentifasciata (O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1885) is presented.

 

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How to Cite

Sankaran, P.M., Abraham, A., Williams, S.H. & Asima, A. (2026) New data on Indian nursery-web spiders (Araneae: Pisauridae). Zootaxa, 5757 (1), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5757.1.1