Urupelma peruvianum (Chamberlin, 1916)
Type Locality and Records
Original Description
Distribution
Type Locality: Cusco, Peru
Adult Male Activity
Collection months of 6 adult male specimen records, against the rainfall where they live
Mean monthly rainfall and temperature 2001–2020 near the type locality, Cusco, Peru. MERRA-2 via NASA POWER, for a grid cell averaging 3640 m. Wet and dry seasons, from the rainfall at the locality itself.
Specimen Records (6)
Male holotype, formerly RVC 139 in the Ralph Vary Chamberlin collection. Yale Peruvian Expedition. Day of collection not recorded.
Immature male paratype, formerly RVC 324. Yale Peruvian Expedition.
Non-type male, formerly RVC 140. Yale Peruvian Expedition. Kaderka (2026) notes its palpal bulb differs from the holotype in the more slender embolus and less developed tegulum, and that the two localities are only about 35 km apart - whether that is intraspecific variation is unresolved.
Immature male, non-type, formerly RVC 140. Yale Peruvian Expedition.
Immature male, non-type, formerly RVC 141. Yale Peruvian Expedition. Kaderka (2026) says confirming it is conspecific depends on re-collecting at the site, near Quillabamba.
Non-type male, collector unknown. Day of collection not recorded.
Taxonomic History
- 1916 Hemirrhagus peruvianus Chamberlin, 1916 - the type species of Urupelma, described from material the Yale Peruvian Expedition collected in Cusco in July 1911.
- Moved to Homoeomma by Perez-Miles & Locht (2003), and to Isiboroa by Gabriel, Sherwood & Perez-Miles (2023).
- 2023 Kaderka et al. (2023) revised it and found the type specimens fitted neither genus - the male palpal bulb and the female spermathecae are both wrong for Homoeomma - and erected Urupelma for it, along with eleven new species. The monophyly of the new genus was supported by a three-gene molecular phylogeny.
- 2026 Kaderka (2026) emended the diagnosis and figured the palpal bulbs of two of the Chamberlin males. He flags an unresolved problem: the male from Tincochaca has a more slender embolus and a less developed tegulum than the holotype from Huadquina, and the two localities are only about 35 km apart. Whether that is variation within one species cannot be settled without more material.