A new species of Dolomedes Latreille, 1804 (Araneae: Lycosoidea: Pisauridae) from Madagascar.

The genus Dolomedes Latreille, 1804 present a very wide range of distribution on every continent except Antarctica (Platnick 2013) However, only one species has been reported from Madagascar, Dolomedes saccalavus Strand, 1907, which is unfortunately based on a juvenile specimen and was destroyed in wartime. We consider this a nomen dubium. In this work, one new species of Dolomedes Latreille, 1804 is described and illustrated from Madagascar. Distributional maps are provided. Specimens were examined using a Zeiss Stemi SV 6 stereomicroscope equipped with a camera lucida. For scanning electron microscopy (SEM), structures were excised, air-dried and mounted on stubs with double-sided adhesive tape. Specimens were sputter coated with gold and examined using a Philips XL 30. The structures of the male palpi did not shrink or deform during the SEM process. All measurements are in millimeters. The nomenclature of the male palp structures follows Carico (1973) and Sierwald (1990). Photographs were made using a Sony W560 attached to the stereomicroscope. Distributional maps were made with the programs Google Earth 6.2 and Croizat version 1.16b (Cavalcanti 2009). The material examined is deposited in the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, USA (CAS) (curator C. E. Griswold). Abbreviations related to eye measurements: OQA = width of ocular quadrangle anteriorly, which is equivalent to the outer distance of anterior median eyes, OQP = width of ocular quadrangle posteriorly, which is equivalent to the outer distance of posterior median eyes, OQH = height of ocular quadrangle, which is equivalent to the outer distance of anterior median eyes and posterior median eyes, PLE = posterior lateral eye, PME = posterior median eye, ALE = anterior lateral eye, AME = anterior median eye, PLE-PME = distance between posterior lateral eye and posterior median eye, PME-PME = distance between posterior median eyes, ALE-AME = distance between anterior lateral eye and anterior median eye, AME-AME = distance between anterior median eyes.