Bioacoustics of Luthela schensiensis

Remarks. Males and females vary in body size: males ( N = 7): BL 14.95–18.55, CL 6.75–7.85, CW 6.25–7.30, OL 7.15–10.45, OW 4.90–7.55; females ( N = 18): BL 17.85–25.65, CL 7.55–10.25, CW 6.90–9.10, OL 9.05–16.65, OW 5.90–13.25. There is intraspecific variation in male and female genital morphology and molecular markers. Specifically, for the male genitalia, there was considerable intraspecific variation in the number of the small middle spines of the conductor, either one ( Fig. 10A ) or two spines ( Fig. 10D, 10K ); in the position of the small spine, either close to the upper spine ( Fig. 10K ), close to the lower spine ( Fig. 10D ), or located at the middle of two long spines ( Fig. 10A ); in the tip shape of lower spine of the conductor, bifurcated ( Fig. 10D–F ) or not ( Fig. 10A, 10H ). Intraspecific variation was noted in the number of teeth (7–10) along the contrategulum margin, and the different shape of the serrated distal tooth ( Fig. 10A, 10D, 10H, 10J ). For intraspecific variation in female genitalia, the posterior margin of the genital sternite may be incurved ( Fig. 11C, 11D, 11I–K ) or straight ( Fig. 11A, 11L ), the middle receptacular clusters were situated at the anterior margin of the bursa copulatrix ( Fig. 11A–J, 11L ), or at slightly dorsal part of the bursa copulatrix ( Fig. 11K, 11O ). Intraspecific genetic distance ranges from 0% to 1.8% based on the K2P substitution model and COI nucleotide sequences ( N = 18). We treated L. heyangensis as a junior synonym of L. schensiensis for several reasons. First, L. heyangensis was diagnosed and described based exclusively on one female ( Zhu & Wang 1984 ). As liphistiid females exhibit considerable intraspecific variation in female genitalia ( Xu et al . 2017 , 2019 ), it is difficult to diagnose the species based exclusively on female characters of a single specimen. Second, we collected intensively from the type localities of both L. heyangensis and L. schensiensis , and we examined and compared the newly collected males and females with the original descriptions and illustrations of both L. heyangensis and L. schensiensis ( Schenkel 1953 ; Song & Haupt 1984 ; Zhu & Wang 1984 ). All lines of evidence support the type female of L. heyangensis belonging to L. schensiensis . Third, there is very low genetic variation (1.8%) among the newly collected specimens from the type localities of both L. heyangensis and L. schensiensis . Thus, the specimens collected from Heyang County, Shaanxi Province should be considered the same species as those collected from both Gaoling and Jingyang Counties, Shaanxi Province . The GenBank accession code of XUX-2011-273 is MH172701 .