Skip to main content
NCBI home page
Biodiversity Data Journal logoLink to Biodiversity Data Journal
. 2023 Jun 2;11:e105283. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.11.e105283

A new species of Ischnothyreus Simon, 1893 (Araneae, Oonopidae) from Guangdong Province, China

Hongjin Fu 1, Zengxue Wang 1, Yufei Sun 1, Yanfeng Tong 1,✉, Dongju Bian 2,✉
PMCID: PMC10257077  PMID: 37305451

Abstract

Background

Ischnothyreus Simon, 1893 is one of the most speciose genera of Oonopidae, with 124 extant species mainly distributed in the Old World. Currently, 27 species are known in China.

New information

A new species, Ischnothyreusruyuanensis Tong, sp. n., is described from Guangdong Province, China. Morphological description and illustrations are provided.

Keywords: Asia, goblin spider, morphology, Oonopinae, taxonomy

Introduction

With currently 1891 described species in 115 genera, goblin spiders (Oonopidae) are a diverse spider family (WSC 2023). They are small (0.5–4.0 mm), haplogyne, usually six-eyed spiders and are most diverse in the tropical and subtropical regions (Jocqué and Dippenaar-Schoeman 2006).

The genus Ischnothyreus of China have been poorly studied for a long period time. Lee (1966) reported a new recorded species and Brignoli (1974) described one new species from Taiwan. Yin and Wang (1984) described one new species from Yuelu Mountain, Hunan; Xu (1989) described one new species from Anhui; and Hu (2001) described one new species from Tibet. Recently, a series of publications greatly increased the knowledge of the diversity of Ischnothyreus. Eight new species from Hainan (Tong and Li 2008, Tong and Li 2012), one new species from Taiwan (Tong and Li 2014), one new species from Chongqing (Tong et al. 2018), one new species from Jiangxi (Liu et al. 2019), seven new species and one newly-recorded species from Yunnan (Huang et al. 2021, Tong et al. 2021) and three new species from Tibet (Tong et al. 2023) have recently been described from China. Up to now, 27 species of Ischnothyreus have been recorded in China.

In this paper, a new species of Ischnothyreus collected from the leaf litter in Guangdong Province of China is described and illustrated.

Materials and methods

All the specimens were collected by sifting leaf litter. The specimens were examined using a Leica M205C stereomicroscope. Details were studied under an Olympus BX51 compound microscope. Photos were made with a Canon EOS 750D zoom digital camera (18 mega pixels) mounted on an Olympus BX51 compound microscope. Vulvae were cleared in lactic acid. Male palps and chelicerae were mounted in Kaiser’s glycerol gelatine. Scanning electron microscope images (SEM) were taken under high vacuum with a Hitachi TM3030 after critical-point drying and gold-palladium coating. All measurements were taken using an Olympus BX51 compound microscope and are in millimetres.

All specimens are preserved in 75% ethanol. The type material is deposited in the College of Life Science, Shenyang Normal University (SYNU) in Liaoning, China.

Taxon treatments

Ischnothyreus ruyuanensis

Tong sp. n.

9A5E3EE4-9749-5471-B6CA-9D1EBDE27C82

751B67C9-D55C-4763-919D-ED32EFF94219

Materials

  1. Type status: Holotype. Occurrence: catalogNumber: SYNU-674; recordedBy: Weihua Cheng; individualCount: 1; sex: male; lifeStage: adult; occurrenceID: EEC9560A-524B-5DB2-ADF0-C5871DFD4D51; Taxon: scientificName: Ischnothyreusruyuanensis; order: Araneae; family: Oonopidae; genus: Ischnothyreus; Location: country: China; stateProvince: Guangdong; county: Shaoguan City; locality: Ruyuan Yao Autonomous County, LalingYaozhai; verbatimElevation: 350 m; verbatimCoordinates: 24°45.816'N, 113°14.183'E; Identification: identifiedBy: Yanfeng Tong; Event: samplingProtocol: sifting leaf litter; eventDate: 04/12/2021

  2. Type status: Paratype. Occurrence: catalogNumber: SYNU-675-676; recordedBy: Weihua Cheng; individualCount: 2; sex: female; lifeStage: adult; occurrenceID: C0EF0169-B026-531F-9AE1-EEABBCEF2814; Taxon: scientificName: Ischnothyreusruyuanensis; order: Araneae; family: Oonopidae; genus: Ischnothyreus; Location: country: China; stateProvince: Guangdong; county: Shaoguan City; locality: Ruyuan Yao Autonomous County, LalingYaozhai; verbatimElevation: 350 m; verbatimCoordinates: 24°45.816'N, 113°14.183'E; Identification: identifiedBy: Yanfeng Tong; Event: samplingProtocol: sifting leaf litter; eventDate: 04/12/2021

Description

Male (Holotype). Body: habitus as in Fig. 1A–C; body length 1.37. Carapace: 0.65 long, 0.58 wide; yellow, oval in dorsal view, pars cephalica strongly elevated in lateral view, surface of elevated portion of pars cephalica and sides finely reticulated, lateral margin straight, smooth (Fig. 1E). Clypeus: curved in frontal view, ALE separated from edge of carapace by 0.7 times their diameter (Fig. 1H). Eyes: ALE largest, ALE circular, PME squared, PLE oval; posterior eye row recurved from above; ALE separated by less than their radius, ALE and PLE touching (Fig. 1E and H). Sternum: as long as wide, pale orange (Fig. 1B and F). Mouthparts: chelicerae, endites and labium yellow; chelicerae straight, anterior face with strong, thorn-like process (tlp), base of fangs with very long sclerotised process (lsp), fang groove with a few small denticles (Fig. 3A, G and H); anteromedian tip of endites with one strong, tooth-like projection (stp) (Fig. 1F). Abdomen: 0.64 long, 0.41 wide; dorsal scutum dark brown, covering 4/5 of abdomen width and approximately 5/6 of abdomen length, not fused to epigastric scutum; postepigastric scutum covering 2/3 of abdomen length. Legs: pale orange, femur I with 2 prolateral spines, tibia I with 4 pairs, metatarsus I with 2 pairs of long ventral spines. Leg II spination similar to leg I, except femur with only 1 prolateral spine. Legs III and IV spineless. Palp: trochanter with ventral projection (vp); bulb with two ventral protuberances (vpr), distal end of bulb with dorsal membrane (dm) and large ventral lobe (vl) (Fig. 3B–F).

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Open in a new tab

Ischnothyreusruyuanensis sp. n., holotype male. A habitus, dorsal view; B habitus, ventral view; C habitus, lateral view; D abdomen, ventral view; E prosoma, dorsal view; F prosoma, ventral view; G prosoma, lateral view; H prosoma, anterior view. Abbreviation: stp = strong, tooth-like projection. Scales: 0.4 mm.

Figure 3.

Figure 3.

Open in a new tab

Ischnothyreusruyuanensis sp. n., male holotype, A–C (SEM) and D–H (light); female paratype, I–J (light). A left chelicerae, anterior view; B left palp, prolateral view; C distal part of palpal bulb, prolateral view; D left palp, prolateral view; E left palp, retrolateral view; F left palp, dorsal view; G left chelicerae, anterior view; H left chelicerae, posterior view; I endogyne, ventral view; J endogyne, dorsal view. Abbreviations: ap = apodemes, csr = curved sclerotised ridge, dm = dorsal membrane, lsp = long sclerotised process, tlp = thorn-like process, vl = ventral lobe, vp = ventral projection, vpr = ventral protuberances, wt = winding tube. Scales: A, B, D–H = 0.1 mm; C = 0.05 mm; I, J = 0.2 mm.

Female (SYNU-675). Same as male, except as noted. Body: habitus as in Fig. 2A–C; body length 1.65. Carapace: 0.61 long, 0.60 wide. Mouthparts: chelicerae and endites unmodified. Abdomen: 0.89 long, 0.62 wide. Epigastric area (Fig. 2D): postepigastric scutum narrow (lenght/width = 3.3), its anterior margin slightly thickened (asr), with dark sclerotised ridge in the middle (msr) of postepigastric scutum. Endogyne (Fig. 3I and J): with 2 strongly curved sclerites (csr), winding tube (wt) long, strongly convoluted.

Figure 2.

Figure 2.

Open in a new tab

Ischnothyreusruyuanensis sp. n., paratype female. A habitus, dorsal view; B habitus, ventral view; C habitus, lateral view; D epigastric region, ventral view; E prosoma, dorsal view; F prosoma, ventral view; G prosoma, lateral view; H prosoma, anterior view. Abbreviations: asr = anterior sclerotised ridge, csr = curved sclerotised ridge, msr = middle sclerotised ridge, wt = winding tube. Scales: A–C、E–H = 0.4 mm; D = 0.2 mm.

Diagnosis

The new species is similar to I.spineus Tong & Li, 2012 in the thorn-like process on the male chelicerae, but can be distinguished by the thorn-like process nearly straight (Fig. 1H, Fig. 3G and H) vs. strongly curved (see Tong and Li (2012): fig. 3D and H), the sclerotised process of fang base more than 1/3 the whole fangs' length (Fig. 3G and H) vs. less than 1/4 the whole fangs' length (see Tong and Li (2012): figs. 3H and 5C) and the dark sclerotised ridge (msr) in the middle of the postepigastric scutum (Fig. 2D) vs. a semi-circular depression (see Tong and Li (2012): figs. 4G and 5D).

Etymology

The specific epithet is an adjective referring to the type locality.

Distribution

Known only from the type locality.

Supplementary Material

XML Treatment for Ischnothyreus ruyuanensis

Acknowledgements

The manuscript benefited greatly from comments by Alireza Zamani, Yuri Marusik and an anonymous referee. This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC-31750002, 31972867) and Liaoning Revitalization Talents Program (XLYC2007044).

Contributor Information

Yanfeng Tong, Email: tyf68@hotmail.com.

Dongju Bian, Email: biandongju@163.com.

References

  1. Brignoli P. On some Oonopidae from Japan and Formosa (Araneae) Acta Arachnologica. 1974;25:73–85. doi: 10.2476/asjaa.25.73. [DOI] [Google Scholar]
  2. Huang Y., Tong Y., Bian D., Li S. One new species of the genus Ischnothyreus Simon, 1893 and re-description of I.yueluensis Yin & Wang, 1984 from China (Araneae, Oonopidae) Biodiversity Data Journal. 2021;9(e66843):1–11. doi: 10.3897/BDJ.9.e66843. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Hu J. Spiders in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau of China. Henan Science and Technology Publishing House; Zhengzhou: 2001. 658 [Google Scholar]
  4. Jocqué R., Dippenaar-Schoeman A. Spider families of the world. Musée Royal de l'Afrique Central; Tervuren: 2006. 336 [Google Scholar]
  5. Lee C. Spiders of Formosa (Taiwan) Taichung Junior Teachers College Publisher; Taizhong: 1966. 84 [Google Scholar]
  6. Liu K., Henrard A., Xiao Y., Xu X. On three new oonopid species from China and the discovery of the male Orchestinabialata Liu, Xiao & Xu, 2016 (Araneae: Oonopidae) Zootaxa. 2019;4701(3):235–256. doi: 10.11646/zootaxa.4701.3.2. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Tong Y., Li S. The oonopid spiders (Araneae: Oonopidae) from Hainan Island, China. Raffles Bulletin of Zoology. 2008;56:55–66. [Google Scholar]
  8. Tong Y., Li S. Four new species of the genus Ischnothyreus from Hainan Island, China (Araneae, Oonopidae) Zootaxa. 2012;3352:25–39. doi: 10.11646/zootaxa.3352.1.3. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Tong Y., Li S. A survey of oonopid spiders in Taiwan with descriptions of three new species. ZooKeys. 2014;396:67–86. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.396.7033. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Tong Y., He J., Li S. A new species of the genus Ischnothyreus Simon, 1893 from Chongqing, China (Araneae, Oonopidae) Journal of Shenyang Normal University (Natural Science) 2018;361:10–15. [Google Scholar]
  11. Tong Y., Sun X., Li S., Bian D. Taxonomic study of the genus Ischnothyreus (Araneae, Oonopidae) from Xishuangbanna Rainforest, southwestern China. ZooKeys. 2021;1034:165–179. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.1034.63388. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Tong Y., Bian D., Li S. Three new species of the genus Ischnothyreus Simon, 1893 and the discovery of the male of I.linzhiensis Hu, 2001 from Tibet, China (Araneae, Oonopidae) ZooKeys. 2023;1152:119–131. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.1152.100341. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. WSC World Spider Catalog. Version 24. Natural History Museum Bern. http://wsc.nmbe.ch. [2023-04-03T00:00:00+03:00]. http://wsc.nmbe.ch
  14. Xu Y. Key to Chinese Oonopidae and a new species of the genus Ischnothyreus from China. Journal of the Huizhou Teachers College. 1989;1989(1):17–21. [Google Scholar]
  15. Yin C., Wang J. On some Oonopidae from southern China (Araneae) Journal of Hunan Teachers College (Natural Science) 1984;1984(3):51–59. [Google Scholar]

Associated Data

This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

Supplementary Materials

XML Treatment for Ischnothyreus ruyuanensis
BDJ.11.e105283-treatment1.xml (19KB, xml)

Articles from Biodiversity Data Journal are provided here courtesy of Pensoft Publishers

RESOURCES