Smeringopina fon Huber, 2013, new species

Smeringopina fon new species

Figs. 310–317, 343–348

Type. ♂ holotype from Benin, Kpinkonzoumé sacred forest (6°20.8'N, 2°18.0'E), 25.xi.2008 (S. Tchibozo), in ZFMK (Ar 10228).

Other material examined. SAO TOMÉ AND PRÍNCIPE: Príncipe: West Coast near Maria Correia Plantation, 8.65 air km WSW Santo Antonio de Príncipe (1°36.0’N, 7°21.2’E), near beach, 22.–24.iv.2001 (C.E. Griswold), 1♂ 1♀ 1 juv. in CAS.

NIGERIA: Kawara, Dekina (7°42’N, 7°01’E), x.1965 – v.1966 (J.H. Davis), 1♀ in USNM.

Etymology. Named for the Fon people, a major West African ethnic group in Benin and southwest Nigeria; noun in apposition.

Diagnosis. Easily distinguished from known congeners by shape of procursus (distinctive ventral element; Fig. 344), male chelicerae (shapes of lateral and median projections; Fig. 345), and epigynum (shape of anterior plate with pair of processes and deep posterior indentation; Figs. 310, 347).

Male (holotype). Total body length 3.9, carapace width 1.3. Leg 1: 40.6 (9.8 + 0.6 + 9.8 + 18.6 + 1.8), tibia 2: 6.3, tibia 3: 4.2, tibia 4 missing; tibia 1 L/d: 79. Distance PME-PME 160 µm, diameter PME 125 µm, distance PME-ALE 45 µm, distance AME-AME 35 µm, diameter AME 95 µm. Carapace ochre-yellow with darker mark posteriorly, lateral margins and two pairs of lateral marks; ocular area with dark ventral mark, clypeus with brown pattern, sternum dark brown; legs ochre-yellow, with dark rings subdistally on femora and tibiae and in patella area, tips of femora and tibiae whitish; abdomen gray with darker pattern dorsally, laterally, and ventrally. Habitus as in Figs. 313–314, ocular area slightly elevated, secondary eyes with very indistinct ‘pseudo-lenses’; clypeus with pointed apophysis near rim (Fig. 314); deep thoracic pit and pair of shallow furrows diverging behind pit. Chelicerae as in Fig. 345, with three rows of ridges (on lateral apophyses, on median projections, and in-between), without modified hairs. Palps as in Figs. 315–317; coxa unmodified; trochanter with ventral sclerotized hump; femur with whitish ventral area bordered retrolaterally by sclerotized flap, without prolateral modification; prolateral femur-patella joint strongly shifted toward ventrally; tarsus with some slightly stronger hairs dorsally; procursus with distinctive ventral element, complex prolateral structures, without hinge (Figs. 343, 344); bulb with weakly sclerotized simple process (Fig. 346; sperm duct apparently opens at base of this process). Legs without spines and curved hairs, with few vertical hairs, retrolateral trichobothrium on tibia 1 at 1%; prolateral trichobothrium present on all tibiae; pseudosegments barely visible.

Variation. Tibia 1 in other male: 9.2; tibia 2/4: 5.9/5.8.

Female. In general similar to male; clypeus unmodified. Tibia 1: 7.0 (missing in second female). Epigynum with large anterior plate with pair of processes and deep posterior indentation (Figs. 310–311, 347); weakly curved posterior plate; internal genitalia as in Figs. 312 and 348.

Distribution. Known from Benin, Nigeria, and Príncipe Island (Fig. 293).