The first harvestman described from Bocas del Toro Archipelago: a new Poecilaemula (Opiliones: Cosmetidae) and notes about the genus

ABSTRACT

The discovery of a new Cosmetidae species from Bocas del Toro Archipelago, Panama, with unusual sexual dimorphism and colouration, presented an identification challenge due to the limited knowledge of the taxonomy of cosmetids in Central America. The new species is notable for the extensive bright orange blots on the dorsal scutum and by the unusual structure of tibia IV of males, which is not incrassate, and bears two compact rows of strong spines. After examination of both type and non-type specimens of the type species of the genus Poecilaemula Roewer, 1912 (Meterginus signatus Banks, 1909), we decided that the new species should be assigned to this genus, and that the current circumscription of the genus is debatable as a natural group. Here, we propose a new definition of Poecilaemula, which includes three species: the type species from Costa Rica; Poecilaemula iching sp. n. from western Panama; and the species Poecilaemula eutypa (Chamberlin, 1925) comb. n. from eastern Panama, which is newly transferred from Paecilaema C.L. Koch, 1839. Additionally, Paecilaemana reimoseri Roewer, 1933 is considered a new junior subjective synonym of Meterginus signatus Banks 1909 (currently under Poecilaemula). The five South American species currently included in Poecilaemula reveal a geographic discrepancy, and they should be transferred to other genera in future investigations because they do not share any special similarity with the type species of the genus.

http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:0101B1EE-CF5F-4781-96FF-E797C71CF05C

KEYWORDS:

• Arachnida
• Grassatores
• Neotropics
• Panama
• Central America

Acknowledgements

We thank Paula Cushing, Jürgen Gruber, Marcos Hara and Alan Martin for material support in dire times following the brutal fire in MNRJ 2018. MM thanks Peter Jaeger and Julia Altmann for their support in the Senckenberg institution. DNP also thanks Carlos Víquez and Victor Townsend for support with field work in Costa Rica. The authors thank Rosannette Quesada for providing supplementary material of P. iching and images of P. eutypa in vivo, and Arthur Anker and Kenji Nishida for the images of P. iching and P. signata, respectively, in vivo. Photographs of the types were provided by the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico – CNPq [311531/2019-9; 430748/2018-3]; Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro – FAPERJ [E-26/200.085/2019; E-26/201.973/2020; E-26/210.148/2019 (249116)]; Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior; Fulbright Brazil; Smithsonian Institution.