Skip to main content Skip to main navigation menu Skip to site footer
Responsive image
Issue: Vol. 5666 No. 4: 30 Jul. 2025
Type: Article
Published: 2025-07-30
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5666.4.2
Page range: 489-508
Abstract views: 78
PDF downloaded: 7

Description of a second species of Sarax Simon, 1892 (Amblypygi, Charinidae) from China

Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Application; College of Life Sciences; Hebei University; Baoding; Hebei 071002; P. R. China; Hebei Basic Science Center for Biotic Interaction; Hebei University; Baoding; Hebei 071002; P. R. China
Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Application; College of Life Sciences; Hebei University; Baoding; Hebei 071002; P. R. China; Hebei Basic Science Center for Biotic Interaction; Hebei University; Baoding; Hebei 071002; P. R. China
Shanghai FlyDreamer Cultural Diffusion Co.; Ltd; Shanghai 200000; P. R. China
Management and Protection Bureau of Tongbiguan Provincial Nature Reserve; Yunnan; 678400; P. R. China
Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Application; College of Life Sciences; Hebei University; Baoding; Hebei 071002; P. R. China; Hebei Basic Science Center for Biotic Interaction; Hebei University; Baoding; Hebei 071002; P. R. China
Amblypygi gonopod morphology taxonomy whip spider

Abstract

A new species of the whip spider genus Sarax Simon, 1892 from Yunnan Province, China is described: S. yunnan Xu, Yu & Zhang, sp. nov., which is now the second Sarax species known only from China. The systematic position of S. yunnan sp. nov. was tested through phylogenetic analysis based on newly sequenced genes (12S, 16S, 18S, 28S and COI) and datasets of previous studies; like Sarax sinensis Wu et al., 2022, Sarax yunnan sp. nov., belongs to the West Asian Clade of Sarax. Finally, we describe the adult female of Sarax sinensis Wu et al., 2022, including data on its genitalia.

 

References

  1. Arabi, J., Cruaud, C., Couloux, A. & Hassanin, A. (2010) Studying sources of incongruence in arthropod molecular phylogenies: sea spiders (Pycnogonida) as a case study. Comptes Rendus Biologies, 333 (5), 438–453. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crvi.2010.01.018
  2. Bove, T. & Rhodes, C. (1987) Adobe Illustrator: The Official Handbook for Designers. Bantam Books, Inc., New York, New York. [unknown pagination]
  3. Giribet, G., Carranza, S., Baguñà, J., Riutort, M. & Ribera, C. (1996) First molecular evidence for the existence of a Tardigrada + Arthropoda clade. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 13 (1), 76–84. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a025573
  4. Giupponi, A. & Kury, A. (2013) Two new species of Heterophrynus Pocock, 1894 from Colombia with distribution notes and a new synonymy (Arachnida: Amblypygi: Phrynidae). Zootaxa, 3647 (2), 329–342. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3647.2.5
  5. Gravely, F.H. (1915) A revision of the Oriental subfamilies of Tarantulidae (order Pedipalpi). Records of the Indian Museum, 11, 433–455. https://doi.org/10.26515/rzsi/v11/i6/1915/163049
  6. Harvey, M.S. & West, P.L.J. (1998) New species of Charon (Amblypygi, Charontidae) from northern Australia and Christmas Island. Journal of Arachnology, 26, 273–284.
  7. Harvey, M.S. (2003) Catalogue of the smaller Arachnid orders of the world. Amblypygi, Uropygi, Schizomida, Palpigradi, Ricinulei and Solifugae. CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, 385 pp. https://doi.org/10.1071/9780643090071
  8. Harms, D. (2018) A new species of Charinus (Amblypygi: Charinidae) from Ghana, with notes on West African whip spiders. Evolutionary Systematics, 2, 45–53. https://doi.org/10.3897/evolsyst.2.24505
  9. Huelsenbeck, J.P. & Hillis, D.M. (1993) Success of phylogenetic methods in the four-taxon case. Systematic Biology, 42 (3), 247–264. https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/42.3.247
  10. Katoh, K. & Standley, D.M. (2013) MAFFT multiple sequence alignment software version 7: improvements in performance and usability. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 30 (4), 772–780. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/mst010
  11. Kraepelin, K. (1895) Revision der Tarantuliden Fabr. Verhandlungen des Naturwissenschaftlichen Vereins in Hamburg, 13, 3–53.
  12. Kocher, T.D., Thomas, W.K., Meyer, A., Edwards, S.V., Pääbo, S., Villablanca, F.X. & Wilson, A.C. (1989) Dynamics of mitochondrial DNA evolution in animals: amplification and sequencing with conserved primers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 86 (16), 6196–6200. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.86.16.6196
  13. Larget, B. & Simon, D. (1999) Markov Chain Monte Carlo Algorithms for the Bayesian Analysis of Phylogenetic Trees. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 16 (6), 750–759. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a026160
  14. Maddison, W.P. & Maddison, D.R. (2023) Mesquite: a modular system for evolutionary analysis. Version 3.81. Available from: http://www.mesquiteproject.org (accessed 3 July 2025)
  15. Mello-Leitão, C. (1931) Pedipalpos do Brasil e algumas notas sobre a ordem. Archivos do Museu Nacional, 33, 7–72.
  16. Minh, B.Q., Schmidt, H.A., Chernomor, O., Schrempf, D., Woodhams, M.D., Von Haeseler, A. & Lanfear, R. (2020) IQ-TREE 2: New models and efficient methods for phylogenetic inference in the genomic era. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 37 (5), 1530–1534. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaa015
  17. Miranda, G., Giupponi, A., Prendini, L. & Scharff, N. (2018) Weygoldtia, A new genus of Charinidae Quintero, 1986 (Arachnida, Amblypygi) with a reappraisal of the genera in the family. Zoologischer Anzeiger, 273, 23–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcz.2018.02.003
  18. Miranda, G. & Reboleira, A. (2019) Amblypygids of Timor-Leste: First records of the order from the country with the description of a remarkable new species of Sarax (Arachnida, Amblypygi, Charinidae). Zookeys, 820, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.820.30139
  19. Miranda, G.S., Giupponi, A.P., Scharff, N. & Prendini, L. (2021a) Phylogeny and biogeography of the pantropical whip spider family Charinidae (Arachnida: Amblypygi). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 194 (1), 136–180. https://doi.org/10.1093/zoolinnean/zlaa101
  20. Miranda, G.S., Giupponi, A.P., Prendini, L. & Scharff, N. (2021b) Systematic revision of the pantropical whip spider family Charinidae Quintero, 1986 (Arachnida, Amblypygi). European Journal of Taxonomy, 772, 1–409. https://doi.org/10.5852/ejt.2021.772.1505
  21. Nakamura, T., Yamada, K.D., Tomii, K. & Katoh, K. (2018) Parallelization of MAFFT for large-scale multiplesequence alignments. Bioinformatics, 34 (14), 2490–2492. https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/bty121
  22. Nunn, G.B., Theisen, B.F., Christensen, B. & Arctander, P. (1996) Simplicity-correlated size growth of the nuclear 28Sribosomal RNA D3 expansion segment in the crustaceanorder Isopoda. Journal of Molecular Evolution, 42, 211–223. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02198847
  23. Pocock, R.I. (1900) The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma. Arachnida. Taylor & Francis, London, 279 pp.
  24. Rahmadi, C. & Kojima, J.-I. (2010) Whip spiders of the genus Sarax in the Papuan region, with description of two new species (Amblypygi: Charinidae). Journal of Arachnology, 38, 475–484. https://doi.org/10.1636/Ha09-95.1
  25. Rambaut, A. (2010) FigTree. Version 1.3.1. Available from: http://tree.bio.ed.ac.uk/software/ffgtree/ (accessed 19 September 2023)
  26. Rambaut, A., Drummond, A.J., Xie, D., Baele, G. & Suchard, M.A. (2018) Posterior summarisation in Bayesian phylogenetics using Tracer 1.7. Systematic Biology, 67 (5), 901–904. https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syy032
  27. Réveillion, F. & Maquart, P.O. (2018) A new species of Charon (Amblypygi: Charontidae) from Orchid Island (Taiwan). Revista Ibérica de Aracnología, 32, 31–36.
  28. Ronquist, F., Teslenko, M., van der Mark, P., Ayres, D.L., Darling, A., Höhna, S., Larget, B., Liu, L., Suchard, M.A. & Huelsenbeck, J.P. (2012) MrBayes 3.2: Efffcient Bayesian phylogenetic inference and model choice across a large model space. Systematic Biology, 61 (3), 539–542. https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/sys029
  29. Simon, C., Frati, F., Beckenbach, A., Crespi, B., Liu, H. & Flook, P. (1994) Evolution, weighting, and phylogenetic utility of mitochondrial gene sequences and a compilation of conserved polymerase chain reaction primers. Annals of the Entomological Society of America, 87 (6), 651–701. https://doi.org/10.1093/aesa/87.6.651
  30. Simon, E. (1892) Arachnides. In: Raffray, A., Bolivar, I. & Simon, E. (Eds.), Etude sur les Arthropodes cavernicoles de l’île de Luzon, Voyage de M. E. Simon aux îles Philippines (mars et avril 1890). 4è mémoire. Annales de la Société entomologique de France, 61, pp. 35–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/21686351.1892.12279283
  31. Stamatakis, A., Hoover, P. & Rougemont, J. (2008) A rapid bootstrap algorithm for the RAxML Web servers. Systematic Biology, 57 (5), 758–771. https://doi.org/10.1080/10635150802429642
  32. Talavera, G., Castresana, J. (2007) Improvement of phylogenies after removing divergent and ambiguously aligned blocks from protein sequence alignments. Systematic Biology, 56, 564–577. https://doi.org/10.1080/10635150701472164
  33. World Amblypygi Catalog (2025) World Amblypygi Catalog. Natural History Museum Bern, Available from: http://wac.nmbe.ch (accessed 10 March 2025)
  34. Werner, F. (1935) Klasse: Arachnoidea, Spinnentiere. Pedipalpen. In: Bronn, H.G. (Ed.), Klassen und Ordnungen des Tierreichs. Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, Leipzig, pp. 317–490.
  35. Weygoldt, P. (2000) Whip Spiders (Chelicerata: Amblypygi). Their Biology, Morphology and Systematics. Apollo Books, Stenstrup, 163 pp. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004473539
  36. Weygoldt, P. (2008) Spermatophores, female genitalia, and courtship behaviour of two whip spider species, Charinus africanus and Damon tibialis (Chelicerata: Amblypygi). Zoologischer Anzeiger, 247, 223–232. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcz.2007.12.002
  37. Wu, S.Y., Zhu, X.Y., Liu, Y.J., De Miranda, G.S., RomÁN-Palacios, C., Li, Z. & He, Z.Q. (2022) A new species of whip spider, Sarax sinensis sp. nov., from Fujian, China (Arachnida: Amblypygi: Charinidae). Zootaxa, 5162 (4), 397–409. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5162.4.4
  38. Xiang, C.Y., Gao, F., Jakovlić, I., Lei, H.P., Hu, Y., Zhang, H., Zou, H., Wang, G.T. & Zhang, D. (2023) Using PhyloSuite for molecular phylogeny and tree‐based analyses. iMeta, 2023. e87. https://doi.org/10.1002/imt2.87
  39. Zhang, D., Gao, F., Jakovlić, I., Zou, H., Zhang, J., Li, W.X. & Wang, G.T. (2020) PhyloSuite: An integrated and scalable desktop platform for streamlined molecular sequence data management and evolutionary phylogenetics studies. Molecular Ecology Resources, 20 (1), 348–355. https://doi.org/10.1111/1755-0998.13096
  40. Zhu, X., Wu, S., Liu, Y., Reardon, C., Roman-Palacios, C., Li, Z. & He, Z. (2021) A new species of whip spider, Weygoldtia hainanensis sp. nov., from Hainan, China (Arachnida: Amblypygi: Charinidae). Zootaxa, 5082 (1), 65–76. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5082.1

How to Cite

Xu, Y., Yu, K., Zhang, S., Zuo, A. & Zhang, F. (2025) Description of a second species of Sarax Simon, 1892 (Amblypygi, Charinidae) from China. Zootaxa, 5666 (4), 489–508. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5666.4.2