First Record of Anapis anchicaya Platnick & Shadab, 1978 (Araneae, Anapidae) from Panama
Anapidae Simon, 1895 currently includes 58 genera and 232 species (World Spider Catalog 2024). They are distributed worldwide, with greater diversity in tropical and southern temperate forests (Platnick et al. 2020). Anapids are enigmatic spiders found in debris and vegetation, and some are known to construct small circular orb webs in debris crevices or over water surfaces (Lopardo and Coddington 2017; Platnick et al. 2020).
The Neotropical region of this family has been extensively studied, particularly by Platnick and Shadab (1978, 1979) and Platnick and Forster (1989). In Panama, the family includes three genera: Anapis Simon, 1895; Anapisona Gertsch, 1941; and Pseudoanapis Simon, 1905, and five species: Anapis keyserlingi Gertsch, 1941; Anapisona furtiva Gertsch, 1941; Anapisona hamigera (Simon, 1898); Anapisona simoni Gertsch, 1941; and Pseudanapis gertschi (Forster, 1958), found in the central and western parts of the country (World Spider Catalog 2024).
The genus Anapis Simon, 1895 is the most diverse, comprising 29 species endemic to Central and South America (World spider Catalog 2024). Since the revision by Platnick and Shadab in 1978, eight new species of Anapis have been described. One species, A. nevada, was described by Müller (1987) from Colombia, and recently Dupérré and Tapia (2018) described seven new species from Ecuador: A. anabelleae, A. carmencita, A. churu, A. mariebertheae, A. naranja, A. nawchi and A. shina. Prior to this paper, A. keyserlingi Gertsch, 1941 was the only known species of Anapis reported for Panama.
The aim of this work was to extend the known geographic range of A. anchicaya Platnick & Shadab, 1978 beyond its type locality and to report the first record of this species in Panama. A list of known records for the species within the genus is also provided.
The examined material is part of the National Reference Collection of the Museo de Invertebrados G.B Fairchild, Facultad de Ciencias Naturales Exactas y Tecnología, Universidad de Panamá, Panama City, Panama (MIUP).
The revision of the material was performed by placing the specimens in a glass Petri dish containing 70% ethanol, and then observing them with the stereomicroscope to determine the characteristics of the samples and to photograph them. To determine the species of Anapis, the key of Platnick and Shadab (1978) was used.
Specimen photos were taken using a CMOS digital camera adapted to a Leica stereomicroscope S9i LED2500 with the software Leica Application Suite X and Leica MC 170 HD adapted to a Leica M 205 A, processed with Leica Application Suite version 4.12.0. Photoshop CS6 Software was used to organize the images and add minor details like arrows and letters.
The map of known species records (Figure 1) was developed using R software (R Core Team 2022). The map was based on data obtained from the tag of the studied specimen and information from the article by Platnick and Shadab (1978).
