Taxonomic descriptions of nine new species of the goblin spider genera Cavisternum, Grymeus, Ischnothyreus, Opopaea, Pelicinus and Silhouettella (Araneae, Oonopidae) from Sri Lanka

U.G.S.L Ranasinghe,Suresh P Benjamin

doi:10.3897/evolsyst.2.25200

Abstract

Nine new species of goblin spiders are described in six different genera:Cavisternumbomn. sp.,Grymeusdharmapriyain. sp.,Ischnothyreuschippyn. sp.,Opopaeaspinosiscoronan. sp.,Pelicinussnookyn. sp.,P.tumpyn. sp.,Silhouettellasaaristoin. sp.,S.snippyn. sp. andS.tiggyn. sp. Three genera are recorded for the first time in Sri Lanka:Cavisternum,GrymeusandSilhouettella. The first two genera are reported for the first time outside of Australia. Sri Lankan goblin spider diversity now comprises 45 described species in 13 different genera.

Highlights

Sri Lanka is home to 393 species of spiders classified in 45 families (World Spider Catalog 2018)
This concluded project on Sri Lankan Oonopidae was initiated to discover new species (Ranasinghe and Benjamin 2016a, b, c, 2018; Ranasinghe 2017) and as a result of this project, 19 new species were discovered from forest habitats across the island (Ranasinghe and Benjamin 2016a, b, c, 2018)
Of the more than 100 localities sampled in Sri Lanka, many goblin spider species were often only found in a few sites whilst others were found only in a single forest patch and absent even in the immediate surrounding forests

Summary

Introduction

Sri Lanka is home to 393 species of spiders classified in 45 families (World Spider Catalog 2018). Field work conducted by us during last few years have shown the presence of an abundant, largely unexplored spider fauna living in the forest patches of the island (Ranasinghe and Benjamin 2016a, b, c, 2018; Kanesharatnam and Benjamin 2016; Benjamin and Kanesharatnam 2016, in press; Batuwita and Benjamin 2014) This concluded project on Sri Lankan Oonopidae was initiated to discover new species (Ranasinghe and Benjamin 2016a, b, c, 2018; Ranasinghe 2017) and as a result of this project, 19 new species were discovered from forest habitats across the island (Ranasinghe and Benjamin 2016a, b, c, 2018).

Materials and methods

Genitalia

Discussion