First description of the female of Lysiteles minimus (Araneae: Thomisidae) from Liupan Mountains, Ningxia, China

Abstract

The genus Lysiteles was established by Simon (1895) for the type species Lysiteles catulus from India. At present, it includes 56 species (Platnick 2011) that are mainly found in southern and eastern Asia (Ono 1988). Lysiteles spiders are small thomisids with body length 2.0–4.5 mm, therefore, it is difficult to collect them in the field. Almost 50% of the known species are described from single sex (Tang et al. 2008). A total of 41 species have been described from China, among them 18 species are single sex (Li & Wang 2011; Song & Zhu 1997). Xysticus minimus was described firstly by Schenkel (1953) for a male specimen from southeast of Gansu Province, China. Then Ono (1979) transferred it to the genus Lysiteles. Song and Wang (1991) described a new species named Lysiteles xianensis, but Song (1995) synonymized it with Lysiteles minimus (Schenkel 1953). While studying the Lysiteles specimens collected from Liupan Mountains, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China, we found pairs of male and female Lysiteles specimens in the same locality. We identified the male as L. minimus. The female specimens have habitus and markings very similar to the male of L. minimus, and the characters of epigynum conform to the genus Lysiteles. We therefore identified it as the female of L. minimus, and describe it here.