New records of spiders (Arachnida, Araneae) from the state of Roraima, northern Brazil

Abstract

Abstract:The Brazilian spider fauna comprises thousands of described species, mostly known by only one or two records, and there are large sampling gaps. The spider fauna of the state of Roraima is enigmatic in Brazil and remains largely unknown. Herein, we present a list of spider species recently collected during an expedition in Roraima. Species-level identifications were possible for 229 adult individuals of 54 species. Five species are newly recorded from Brazil, and 30 species are presented for the first time from Roraima. Most of these new records are represented by widespread species, representing the huge and historical deficiency in the spider sampling throughout Roraima.

First record of Theraphosa apophysis (Tinter, 1991) (Araneae, Mygalomorphae, Theraphosidae) in Brazil

“…Therefore, our work confirms the presence of all 3 species of Theraphosa in the Amazon biome, with current distribution in 6 countries: T. apophysis (Venezuela, Colombia, and Brazil); T. blondi (Brazil, Suriname, and French Guiana), and T. stirmi (Guyana and Brazil) (Schmidt 1993, Rudloff and Weinmann 2010, Carvalho et al 2017, World Spider Catalog 2018. The new record of T. apophysis is important not only because it is the first time the species is collected in Brazil, but because this is the first reliable record for this species in the country, as most of the known specimens are from the pet trade.…”

“…However, the ecology of these spiders is still poorly known. To date, only T. stirmi and T. blondi have been reported to Brazil (Schmidt 1993, Carvalho et al 2017, and despite its occurrence in neighboring countries such as Colombia and Venezuela, T. apophysis has not been recorded in Brazil.…”