Description of the unknown male of Vappolotestianjiayu Li, Zhao & Li, 2023 (Araneae, Agelenidae, Coelotinae) from China

Abstract Background Vappolotes Zhao & Li, 2019 is one of the troglophilous genera, with five known species. The previous description of V.tianjiayu from China was based solely on female specimens collected from caves in the Wuling Mountains in southern China without any males. New information The present study, deals with the first record of the male of V.tianjiayu from its type locality: Guluo Cave. The validation of species is based on the morphological characteristics of both male and female.


Introduction
The changes in ancient oceans (Zhao et al. 2022) and mountains (Li et al. 2021, Yao et al. 2021, Lu et al. 2022) made Asia a region with a high spider diversity.Intensified research on Chinese spiders has increased in recent years and many new species have been discovered and described in China (Li 2020, Liu et al. 2022, Lin et al. 2023).The overwhelming majority of them are found from caves in China (Liu and Li 2013, Lin and Li 2014, Li and Wang 2017, Yang et al. 2023, Yang et al. 2023).The family Agelenidae C.L. Koch, 1837 (Koch 1837) is the tenth largest spider family in the world with 96 genera and 1387 species (WSC 2023).Many species are troglophilous, especially within subfamily Coelotinae, such as Guilotes Zhao & Li, 2018(Li et al. 2018), Troglocoelotes Zhao & Li, 2019(Li et al. 2019a), Yunguirius Li, Zhao & Li, 2023(Li et al. 2023b) and also Vappolotes Zhao & Li, 2019(Li et al. 2019b).
After a seven-year interval, two male specimens of V. tianjiayu were collected from the previously explored Guluo Cave (type locality), followed by ten females.The long and thin embolus of the male palp matches the long and spiral tubular spermatheca of the female vulva and the strong conductor of the male palp matches the broad copulatory opening of the female epigyne and pocket-shaped copulatory duct of the female vulva.By the collection of female and male specimens together and the matched morphological characteristics, we believe them to be conspecific and present comprehensive descriptions along with accompanying morphological photographs in this study.

Natural History
Guluo Cave (entrance to the Guluo Cave in Fig. 4A) is one of the karst caves.Specimens were collected on 29 Aug 2023 from the rock walls of this cave (pointed by  the white arrow in Fig. 4B).Previous studies have also documented this species as cave-dwelling species found in karst caves (Li et al. 2023a).

Diagnosis
The male Vappolotes tianjiayu resembles V. ganlongensis (type species of Vappolotes) by the size and shape of patellar apophysis, retrolateral tibial apophysis and lateral tibial apophysis, long and filiform embolus and spoon-shaped anterior conductor with lamella.However, it can be distinguished from V. ganlongensis as follows: 1) anterior conductor accounts for a third of the whole in V. tianjiayu (Fig.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Male habitus of Vappolotes tianjiayu.A dorsal view; B ventral view.Scale bar equal for A and B.

Figure 4 .
Figure 4. Habitat of Guluo Cave, Hunan, China.A entrance to the Guluo Cave (by Cuncun Yang); B inside of the Guluo Cave and the white arrow shows where the species inhabit (by Zhe Zhao).

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Abbreviations of eyes used in the text are as follows: ALE anterior lateral eye; ALE-PLE distance between ALE and PLE; AME anterior median eye; AME-ALE distance between AME and ALE; AME-AME distance between AME and AME; AME-PME distance between AME and PME; PLE posterior lateral eye; PME posterior median eye; PME-PLE distance between PME and PLE; PME-PME distance between PME and PME.