AltSU scientist published an article about a rare tentacled spider

Alexander Fomichev, a senior lecturer at the Department of Zoology and Physiology of the Institute of Biology of Altai State University Alexander Fomichev published another article about spiders: “New and poorly known species of Palpimanus Dufour, 1820 (Araneae, Palpimanidae) from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan” (“New and little-known species of the genus Palpimanus Dufour, 1820 (Araneae, Palpimanidae) from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan”).

The article was published in one of the leading journals in the field of zoological taxonomy, Zootaxa. The work is devoted to tentacled spiders (Palpimanidae) of Central Asia. Tentacled spiders are rare and hard to find in nature. They inhabit the desert mountains in the south of Eurasia, in Africa (south of the Sahara), and in the tropical forests of South America. The tentacled spiders of Central Asia have never been the subject of large review articles and have been understudied so far.

“In 1946, the arachnologist D.E. Kharitonov from Uzbekistan described the species of tentacled spider Palpimanus sogdianus Charitonov, 1946. Subsequently, the type specimens on the basis of which this species was described were lost, and it was impossible to re-describe the species according to modern standards. The overly laconic original description of P. sogdianus was provided only with sketchy illustrations, which did not allow us to be certain in identifying the spiders of this species. As a reliable identification of this Central Asian species was impossible, further study of the spiders of this family in the region, including the description of new species, was blocked for more than seventy years,” Alexander said.

Last year, Alexander Fomichev visited the type locality (where the type specimens originate) of this half-forgotten species, in the mountains of Gissar (Uzbekistan), and collected new specimens of P. sogdianus. The new material made it possible to re-describe this species according to modern standards, and "unlock" further research in Central Asia. In the same expedition in 2022, on the Kugitang ridge, on the border with Turkmenistan, Alexander also found a species of the genus under discussion, new to science, which was named Palpimanus rakhimovi Fomichev, Marusik & Zonstein, 2023 in honor of the Uzbek entomologist Muhammadtuychi Rakhimov (Samarkand), who helped in organization of the expedition. Based on materials from the Khatlon region of Tajikistan, another new species was described – Palpimanus logunovi Fomichev, Marusik & Zonstein, 2023. This new species has a morphology that is unique for its family and will be moved to a new genus in the future, the description of which is planned in the future with further accumulation of material.

“Tentacle-legged spiders do not weave webs and prey exclusively on other spiders, they are extremely lethargic and inhibited. How they manage to defeat other, much more mobile and aggressive spiders, is still a subject for further study. In general, the study of such endemic and peculiar representatives of the Central Asian fauna can shed light on the overall picture of faunagenesis (fauna formation) in this region,” said Alexander Fomichev.

With the publication of the article about the tentacled spiders of Central Asia, the number of spider species discovered by Fomichev has increased to 77. The study was carried out as part of the FZMW-2023-0006 project “Endemic, local and invasive arthropods (Arthropoda) of the mountains of South Siberia and Central Asia: a unique gene pool hot spot of biodiversity” State task of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation.