Ampliando o conhecimento da araneofauna do Nordeste brasileiro: novas descobertas e desafios taxonômicos na coleção da UFPB

Abstract

Araneae is widely diverse with approximately 50,000 described species and is divided into two suborders: Mesothelae and Opisthothelae. The suborder Opisthothelae comprises two infraorders, Mygalomorphae and Araneomorphae,which have 131 families. In 2018, the infraorder Araneomorphae was divided into five clades. And currently, the Collection of Arachnids and Myriapods of UFPB contains 22 of the 41 families of the RTA (Retrolateral Tibial Aphophysis) clade – which is a projection on the tibia of the male pedipalps. With this, the present work aims to expandthe knowledge of the araneofauna of the Brazilian Northeast, addressing theunderestimated diversity of spiders in the UFPB Collection and the scarcity of taxonomicknowledge and literature. Currently, the UFPB Collection has 1,741 lots, mostly from theBrazilian Northeast, of which 661 lots are part of the spiders of the RTA Clade. The objective was to identify these spiders seeking to find out about the fauna of the Northeast,especially about the Atlantic Forest and Caatinga biomes. And obtained the following preliminary results: of the 661 lots of RTA Clade, 661 (37.97%) were identified 153 (23.14%) lots at the generic level and 131 (19.81%) lots were identified at the specific level, which corresponds to 10 families. Among the identified species, it is estimated thatthey are new to science: Ctenidae gen. nov. 1 and Ctenidae gen. nov. 2. It also presents the description of four new species for Isoctenus Bertkau, 1880, which is a genus of medium to large spiders, proposed with the intention of including the species I. foliifer Bertkau, 1880, collected in Rio de Janeiro. It currently contains 16 valid species, and theyare distributed mainly in the Cerrado and Atlantic Forest regions of Brazil. Isoctenus sp.1, Isoctenus sp. 2 and Isoctenus sp. 3 from Bahia, Brazil. In addition to new records of the distribution of I. areia Polotow and Brescovit, 2009, initially known only for the city of Areia, Paraíba, and now for the cities of Mamanguape, Paraíba and Igarassu, Pernambuco.