In addition to the genus diagnosis, the following features characterize the species:MALE(syntypes). Cephalothorax: jetblack when described by O. Pickard-Cambridge (1872: 337) now faded to brown - light brown, with very inconspicuous minute adpressed setae blended into colour of the tegument, without any contrasting setae, no fringe of white setae beneath ventral edge. Abdomen now dark, anteriorly with small stronger sclerotized area not forming scutum, on two specimens preserved remnants of adpressed setae along anterior margin and laterally: white with brown streak medially, which could be considered remnants of median darker streak (according to O. Pickard-Cambridge - op. cit.: "... tegument black covered with reddish yellow pubescence easily rubbing off, but unicolorous - devoid of any traces of lighter or darker spots in the posterior half - like those in S. conveniens...") without any contrasting setae, no fringe of white setae beneath ventral edge. Abdomen now dark anteriorly with small stronger sclerotized area not forming scutum, on two specimens preserved. Frontal aspect: face and chelicerae brown, clearly lighter than eye field (which is lacking white line), covered with sparse and very indistinct colourless and whitish setae, setae surrounding eyes I very inconspicuous colourless and whitish, slightly better visible on specimens with darker face, on some specimens there is a group of longer and darker setae on dorsal part of rims of AME and in some also on ALE, not a clear character. Sparse colourless or whitish setae basally on chelicerae, very few on apical half of chelicerae, particularly on median surfaces. Fans of long setae on tips of pedipalpal femur, whole patella, tibia and cymbium basally, much less conspicuous than in kochi because are colorless, not strikingly white, with an admixture of a fawn ones. Legs: I generally brown with lighter dorsal surface of patella, II-IV gradually lighter with yellow and brown annuli; femora I-IV with dorsal surfaces lighter and thin median longitudinal line. Retrolateral surface of femur I dark with long colourless to whitish hairs. Ventral aspect: sternum brown to light brown, coxae I-IV brownish, abdomen varies from light greyish brown to greyish brown. Palpal organ (Figs 63, 64), pedipalps light with whitish hairs, tibial apophysis - broad bent sclerotized triangle followed by a whitish triangular protuberance of dorsal edge of tibia; tibia: laterally resembles Aelurillus conveniens, but the elements visible are not the best diagnostic characters for these species; dorsally presents a notch between triangularly shaped apical dorsal edge (passing into thin whitish and semitransparent, poorly visible pointed end), this character have not been studied in related species but may be presumably similar. Bulbus laterally broad, patella yellow with thin blackish grey line around apical rim; femur with long whitish setae, apically yellow, basally dark grey, on lateral surface these grey areas stretch nearby apical end. Setae dorsally on tibia often sparse enough to show both apophyses on dorsal edge of tibia, of similar length, the external one triangular, sclerotized and brown, the median one separated by a by a wedge shaped furrow. Measurements (in mm) of 3 males (syntypes). Length of cephalothorax 2.57-2.76; length of abdomen 2.31-2.57. Length of 5 segments of leg I (tarsus to femur, in mm and in % of leg I): 4.10-4. 44 . Leg order: III - 122-127%, IV - 113-126% , I - 100%, II - 98-102%.(c) PRÓSZYŃSKI 2003Body: Markings: dark or bright vertical stripes. Eyes: AER: dorsal edge procurve. Labium: Length: longer than wide. Legs: Leg formula: 3-4-1-2. Distribution: Geographical Distribution: Middle East. COMMENTSDiagnosis.Differs from Ae. aeruginosus and kochi by lack of white lines on anterior slope of eye field, is larger than aeruginosus but smaller than kochi, with slightly longer eye field, lower cephalothorax and shorter legs than the latter; from conveniens differs by not having black face. Remark. Miss Galina Azarkina (of Novosibirsk) has communicated me her observation that these specimens have cephalothorax covered by dense dark setae or scales, but have also dense white setae on clypeus. The first character is charateristic also for Ae. nabataeus (absent in Ae. bokerinus), the second for Ae. bokerinus (but absent in Ae. nabataeus). (c) PRÓSZYŃSKI 2003 |