Crassicrus stoicum (Chamberlin, 1925)
♀ Female described ♂ Male described
Type Locality and Records
Type locality
Original Description
Distribution
Type Locality: Chichen itza, Yukaton, Mexico
Synonyms
Eurypelma stoica Chamberlin, 1925; Aphonopelma stoicum (Chamberlin, 1925)
Specimen Records (1)
MCZ 23168 (holotype) ♂ Holotype Mexico
Holotype male of Eurypelma stoica Chamberlin, 1925, in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard. Collector unknown, no date on the label. Redescribed and figured by Longhorn & Gabriel (2019, figs. 23-32, 37) as the basis for the transfer to Crassicrus. Total length including chelicerae 24.9 mm. The specimen is fragile and badly matted with age, which prevented the authors from checking several potentially informative characters, including whether the anterior appendages bear plumose hairs.
Taxonomic History
- 1925 Eurypelma stoica Chamberlin, 1925 - described from a single male from Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico.
- 1985 Raven (1985) sank Eurypelma into Avicularia, sweeping the name along with it. Schmidt (1993) relisted it as Aphonopelma stoicum without explanation. Smith (1994) agreed with the transfer after examining the holotype, but recorded remarks that sit badly with it: a "distinct short, stout embolus with keels on both dorsal/ventral surfaces", unlike the long tapering emboli of most North American Aphonopelma.
- Crassicrus stoicum (Chamberlin, 1925) comb. nov. (Longhorn & Gabriel, 2019), on re-examination of the holotype. The male palpal bulb settles it: prolateral striations, a strongly developed prolateral superior keel that is thin and does not extend beyond the dorsal plane of the embolus, and a subapical keel whose serrate denticulations are unusually sharp and directed disto-ventrally. It becomes the sixth species of Crassicrus.
- It also breaks a generic character. Candia-Ramirez & Francke (2017) had diagnosed Crassicrus partly on an incrassate femur III, present in all five species they knew; C. stoicum lacks it, and lacks the barrel-shaped tibia IV of C. lamanai as well.
- Longhorn & Gabriel reject the female published for this species by Schmidt & Piepho (1997). Both Senckenberg specimens - the alleged female from "Catemaco/Mexiko" and a mature male from the same stock that Schmidt & Piepho did not mention - are Crassicrus, but the male's subapical keel is smooth rather than sharply serrate, and the locality is far from Yucatan. They treat them as one or more undescribed species and decline to name them pending more material.