Wednesday 8 February 2017

Cheiracanthium vankhedei: A new species of Yellow Sack Spider from Mongolia.

Yellow Sack Spiders, Cheiracanthium spp., are Araneomorph Spiders (Spiders with opposable fangs) found across Eurasia, Africa, Australia and parts of the Americas, and thought to be at their most diverse in North Africa. They are common in houses and agricultural land (and sometimes cars), and have a bite which is painful and potentially harmful to Humans, generally requiring medical treatment.

In a paper published in the Indian Journal of Arachnology in December 2017, Yuri Marusik of the Institute for Biological Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Department of Zoology & Entomology at the University of the Free State and the Zoological Museum at the University of Turku, and Alexander Fomichev of the Altai State University, describe a new species of Yellow Sack Spider from Khovd Province in western Mongolia.

The new species is named Cheiracanthium vankhedei, in honour of the late Indian arachnologist Ganesh Vankhede, of the Indian Society of Arachnology and Amravati University. The species is described from a male specimen 8.5 mm in length and yellowish cream in colour. The species was found living in different environments, gallery forest, stony desert and dry shrubland, though only over a very limited geographic area.

Cheiracanthium vankhedei, male specimen in dorsal view. Marusik & Fomichec (2016).

See also...

http://sciencythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/aptostichus-sabinae-new-species-of.htmlhttp://sciencythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/eriovixia-gryffindori-new-species-of.html
http://sciencythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/leaf-mimicking-spiders-from-china-and.htmlhttp://sciencythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/mimetus-lamelliformis-mimetus-wangi-two.html
http://sciencythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/ceropegia-sandersonii-flower-mimicking.htmlhttp://sciencythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/maratus-fimbriatus-new-species-of.html
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