Abdomegaphobema peterklaasi (Schmidt, 1994)
Common name: Costa Rican Blackvelvet
♀ Female described ♂ Male described
Type Locality and Records
Type locality
Original Description
Distribution
Etymology
A patronym for Peter Klaas, who collected the type series in Costa Rica; Schmidt (1994) has not been consulted, but Sherwood et al. (2023) record the types as "P. Klaas leg.".
Specimen Records (2)
SMF 38028-84 (holotype) ♀ Holotype Costa Rica
Holotype female of Megaphobema peterklaasi Schmidt, 1994, in the Senckenberg Museum, Frankfurt, collected by Peter Klaas and determined by Schmidt in 1994. Examined by Sherwood et al. (2023). Its spermathecae are separated from the specimen and mounted on their own slide, SMF 58277-84. No locality finer than "Costa Rica" is on record; Schmidt (1994) has not been consulted.
SMF 38030-84 (paratype) ♂ Paratype Costa Rica
Paratype male, Senckenberg Museum, Frankfurt, collected by Peter Klaas. One of its first legs is a regenerated limb.
Taxonomic History
- Abdomegaphobema peterklaasi (Schmidt, 1994)
- Described as Megaphobema peterklaasi from Costa Rica, on a female holotype and a male paratype now in the Senckenberg Museum. A quieter history than its congener A. mesomelas: one generic change in thirty years, when Sherwood et al. (2023) erected Abdomegaphobema and moved both species into it.
- Between those two points the species appears only in handbooks — Schmidt's own key to the Theraphosinae genera (1997) and his world overview (2003), and Peters's two volumes (2000, 2003), the later of which Longhorn & Gabriel (2019) consider largely erroneous. Gabriel (2024) figures the female and, in part, spells the epithet peterklassi.
- 2023 Sherwood et al. (2023) examined both types when they erected Abdomegaphobema. They also record having considered, with colleagues, whether this species was no more than a black-legged colour form of A. mesomelas; the palpal bulbs of the two holotypes decided against it.