New Species of Palpimanidae (Araneae) From the West Indies

Abstract

Members of the family Palpimanidae have been reported from many parts of the vorld but the. number of genera and species remains small as compared to many other families of spiders. Five genera have long been recognized from the Western Hemisphere, as follows: Anisaedus Simon, I893 Compsopus TUllgren, I9O.5 Theringia Keyserling, I89I; Otiothops Macleay, 1839; and Palpimanus Dufour, 182o. Species assigned to the genus Otiothops far outnumber the species belonging to the remaining four genera, taken in the Vestern Hemisphere, whereas species belonging to the genus Palpimanus have been described far more frequently than in any other genus in the Eastern Hemisphere. Apparently, only one species of Anisaedus has heretofore been described from the Western Hemisphere and that was collected in Ecuador. As far as I have been able to learn, up to the present time twelve species of Otiothops have been described from South America, Central America and the West Indies.. Both sexes are now known for O. brevis Simon from Venezuela, O. macleayi Banks from Panama, O. walckenaeri MacLeay from Cuba. O. calcaratus MelloLeito from Colombia is known only from the male. The eight remaining species are known only from females. Ever since finding both sexes of O. macleayi Banks in Panama in I934 and I936 I have been interested in the family. I have taken this species in large mimbers in many different localities in Panama. I have not yet found species belonging to the genus Otiotkops in Jamaica, W. I. where I have spent considerable, time on collecting trips in the last decade. The genus did not appear in my recent collection from Puerto Rico where I had hoped to find the male of O. lutzi Petrunkevitch. I have two immature specimens taken in the spring of 1964 on St. John, U. S. Virgin Islands. which I am tentatively assigning to O. lutzi. In my collection made on the island .of Trinidad, W. I., in the spring of I964 I found a very interesting male and several females of a species which I am assigning to Otiotkops even though the male palp shows features not heretofore associated with this genus. This species is described later in this brief paper. While searching through the collection of palpimanid