Research Article |
Corresponding author: Adriano Brilhante Kury ( adrianok@gmail.com ) Academic editor: Gonzalo Giribet
© 2015 Alessandro Ponce de Leão Giupponi, Adriano Brilhante Kury.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Giupponi APL, Kury AB (2015) A new species of Metagovea Rosas Costa, 1950 from Napo Province, Ecuador (Opiliones, Cyphophthalmi, Neogoveidae). ZooKeys 477: 1-15. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.477.8706
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As a result of an expedition to Ecuador in 2014, a new species of mite harvestman was discovered. This new species belonging to the genus Metagovea Rosas Costa, 1950 – Metagovea ligiae sp. n. – is described, based on male and female specimens from Napo Province, Ecuador. This is the fourth species described for the genus and the second from Ecuador. A simple terminology is proposed for the microtrichiae of the spermatopositor and genital characters in the family are discussed. The genus Brasiliogovea Martens, 1969 is consistently misspelled in the literature as Brasilogovea. The description of Metagovea ligiae offered opportunity to discuss some aspects of systematics of the family.
Neotropical fauna, conservation, Ecuador, taxonomy, harvestmen
Cyphophthalmi is the least diverse suborder of Opiliones arachnids, and is represented in tropical and temperate ecosystems worldwide. It includes six families and around 200 described species, although this number is heavily underestimated (
Neogoveidae has 26 species arranged in 8 genera, mostly Neotropical, but also Nearctic and Afrotropical (
The genus Brasiliogovea Martens, 1969 is consistently misspelled in the literature as “Brasilogovea”, beginning with Shear (1980), including the important
Metagovea is only known from South America, in the Andean and Amazonian regions. There are only three described species, but a plethora of undescribed species are already known (
The specimens were collected during 15th–16th February 2014 through meticulous visual search throughout the floors of the forest and buildings. All specimens were captured with a fine brush and placed in vials containing 75% and 100% ethanol.
Nomenclature of body parts and measurements follows the model of
The following abbreviations are used: MNRJ = Museu Nacional, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; QCAZ = Museo de Zoologia, Pontifícia Universidad Catolica del Ecuador – Quito, Ecuador; MCZ = Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
Illustrations of the spermatopositor and ovipositor were made through a Carl Zeiss Primo Star microscope and AxioVision LE image capture system, with the stacking software Combine ZP Suite (by Alan Hadley). SEM images were made at JEOL JSM-6390 LV.
Metagovea disparunguis Rosas Costa, 1950, by original designation.
Metagovea disparunguis Rosas Costa, 1950 (Colombia), Metagovea ligiae sp. n. (Ecuador), Metagovea oviformis Martens, 1969 (Brazil: Manaus) and Metagovea philipi Goodnight & Goodnight, 1980 (Ecuador).
The new species is named after friend and fellow arachnologist Ligia Benavides for her work on Neotropical Neogoveidae.
♂ holotype: Ecuador, Napo, Sumaco-Galeras National Park, Pacto Sumaco (-0.66577°, -77.59813°, 1526 m), 15–16 February 2014, A.B. Kury and A.P.L. Giupponi leg.; ♀ (1) paratype: same data as holotype (QCAZ 322). ♂ (1) and ♀ (1) paratypes: same data as holotype (MCZ 45452); ♂ (3, of which 1 mounted for SEM) and ♀ (8, of which 1 mounted for SEM) paratypes: same data as holotype (MNRJ 8434).
Small animals, maximum body length 1.5 mm; body outline on dorsal view oblong (Fig.
Measurements. Male holotype: total length: 1.5 mm, greatest width: 0.8 mm, in the posterior part of prosoma; length/width ratio: 1.88; length of chelicerae: 1.0 mm, pedipalps (trochanter to tarsus): 1.0 mm; legs I: 1.5 mm, II: 1.2 mm, III: 1.0 mm, IV: 1.3 mm.
Color (in ethanol) and tegument. Body and appendages dark brown with most of dorsal and ventral surfaces and legs showing a dense tuberculate-microgranulate structure (
Body (Fig.
Ventral prosomal complex (Fig.
Spiracles circular (Fig.
Chelicera (Fig.
Pedipalp (Fig.
Legs (Figs
Spermatopositor (Figs
Metagovea ligiae sp. n., male paratype (MCZ 45452). Spermatopositor, interpretative drawing of photograph in Figure
Known only from the type locality, Pacto Sumaco, Napo, Ecuador (Fig.
(Figs
All specimens were collected in an area of about 10 m2, under a house built partly on a small slope in a nature conservation area (Fig.
Comparing the score or so of published genital illustrations of Neotropical neogoveids, a few connecting traits can be advanced. Unfortunately male genitalia of M. disparunguis are hitherto unknown.
Microtrichiae C may be either apical (short as in Canga and Huitaca or long as in Metagovea and Tucanogovea) or subdistal, shifted to dorsal as in Brasiliogovea and Neogovea. The apical pair of horns with associated shifting of microtrichiae C to dorso subdistal seem to be exclusive of Neogovea where they are long and well-developed and of Brasiliogovea, where they are much shorter and rounded. The apical margin of the spermatopositor in Huitaca is projected as a lobe with an augmented number of very short rod-like microtrichiae C placed in a tight row. Canga has only a convex apex, not nearly as projected as Huitaca, but with microtrichiae C equally reduced, although they do not form a row as in Huitaca.
Microtrichiae A are elongate and slender in most Neogoveidae, with the apparent exception of M. ligiae and M. philipi, where they are much shorter and thick. Curiously M. oviformis does not match the pattern of Metagovea. The dma appear to be exclusive of M. ligiae and M. philipi, again absent in M. oviformis. The paired dmm, which seem to be universal in neogoveids, appear to be fused to each other only in Neogovea.
Metagovea, now with four described species, displays a formal diversity far smaller than the real one, as shown by
The distribution of the four species of Metagovea is disjunct. Metagovea oviformis occurs in the lowland forest in Amazon Basin (altitude 100 m), while the other three occur in the Central Andean Range (WWF NT0121 and NT 0136) in Ecuador and Colombia, at altitudes between 1150 and 2150 m. It is possible that M. oviformis does not belong in Metagovea. This speculation is more tempting since a closely related genus has been described from Amazon basin.
APLG located the ideal spot of the type series, conceived of the study and participated in its design and coordination, dissected and prepared specimens, conducted all SEM and optical microscopy imaging sessions, criticized map and plates, and drafted the manuscript outline, species diagnosis and discussion.
ABK managed collecting permissions in Ecuador, drove the vehicle through meandering anoxic Andean roads, edited SEM and optical microscopy images, selected illustrations, set up plates, created the map, drafted the species description, edited the final text and saw the MS through press.
Both authors organized an expedition to Ecuador in which they collected the type series. Also both authors read and approved the final manuscript.
This study was supported by grants # 562149/2010-4 (PROTAX – OPESC project), # 504327/2012-7 (Sistema de Informações sobre a Biodiversidade Brasileira (SiB-Br) - Coleções Biológicas) and scholarship # 477502/2012-1 (Universal 14/2012) from CNPq, and grant E-26/111.705/2012 (APQ1) from FAPERJ to ABK. Personnel at the SEM Platform Rudolf Barth (IOC-FIOCRUZ) – Roger Magno Macedo Silva, Wendell Girard Dias and Rômulo Custódio dos Santos – provided SEM facilities. The Mycological Collection Trichocomaceae (FIOCRUZ – IOC), facilitated the use of microscopical image capture (Mario Gatti and Rodolfo Armando da Cunha). Work of MNRJ Ecuador Expeditions has been facilitated by the steady support of Álvaro Barragán, Mauricio Vega and Emilia Moreno (QCAZ). Depositing the primary types in Ecuador was part of our agreement with Ecuadorian authorities. Two unknown referees and Gonzalo Giribet provided insightful criticism to the draft.