Psalmopoeus maya Witt, 1996

species inquirenda ♀ Female described ♂ Male described

Type Locality and Records

Type locality

Original Description

Witt, G. (1996). Eine neue Psalmopoeus-Species aus Belize Psalmopoeus maya sp. n. (Araneida: Theraphosidae: Aviculariinae). Arachnologisches Magazin 4(4): 1-14.

Distribution

Belize

Type Locality: Belize, Central Amerika,Vaca-Plateau, Cayo Destrict, Slate Creek, in hohlem Geäst, 300m Ü. N. N.

Taxonomic History

  1. 1996
    Psalmopoeus maya Witt, 1996
  2. Described from Belize on a male and a female. The types should have been deposited at the Zoologisches Museum Hamburg and were never found (Gabriel & Sherwood, 2020), so the name has long been held as a species inquirenda — valid, but not confidently applicable to any specimen.
  3. 2022
    Cifuentes & Bertani (2022) declared it a nomen nudum. Peñaherrera-R. et al. (2025) reject that: the name was published before the fourth edition of the Code and is fully compliant with it, as the World Spider Catalog also records. It is a valid species that requires redescription.

Bibliography (3)

Witt, G. (1996). Eine neue Psalmopoeus-Species aus Belize Psalmopoeus maya sp. n. (Araneida: Theraphosidae: Aviculariinae). Arachnologisches Magazin 4(4): 1-14.
Cifuentes, Y. & Bertani, R. (2022). Taxonomic revision and cladistic analysis of the tarantula genera Tapinauchenius Ausserer, 1871, Psalmopoeus Pocock, 1985, and Amazonius n. gen. (Theraphosidae, Psalmopoeinae). Zootaxa 5101(1): 1-123.
Peñaherrera-R., P. J., León-E, R. J., Guerrero-Campoverde, A., Falcón-Reibán, J. M., Fajardo-Torres, J. D., Picón-Rentería, P., Gabriel, R., Sherwood, D. & Cisneros-Heredia, D. F. (2025). Novel insights on Psalmopoeinae Samm & Schmidt, 2010 (Araneae: Theraphosidae): new species, taxonomic restorations, and reversal of four erroneous synonymies. Arachnology 20 (3): 491-508.
The World Spider Catalogue