Allometry and sexual dimorphism in three giant whip spider species (Amblypygi, Phrynidae, Heterophrynus)
Abstract
Amblypygids display high levels of sexual dimorphism, especially larger pedipalps in males compared to females. This study examines the difference in allometric rates as a potential cause of dimorphism in pedipalps and walking legs in three Heterophrynus species: Heterophrynus batesii (Butler, 1873); Heterophrynus longicornis (Butler, 1873), and Heterophrynus elaphus (Pocock, 1903). Dimorphism is observed in all studied appendages, but higher allometric rates are shown in males more than females for only the pedipalps (for all three species) and the first walking legs (for only H. elaphus), with higher dimorphism in the pedipalp for H. batesii and lower in H. elaphus. Dimorphism in pedipalps appears to be linked to species' mating system: larger dimorphism are observed in polygamous systems, whereas moderate and small dimorphisms are observed in monogamous and solitary species, respectively. Contrary to pedipalps, the evolution of walking legs seems to occur via natural selection rather than sexual selection.
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Information & Authors
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Published In
Canadian Journal of Zoology
Volume 101 • Number 3 • March 2023
Pages: 189 - 198
History
Received: 11 May 2022
Accepted: 13 October 2022
Accepted manuscript online: 28 November 2022
Version of record online: 6 February 2023
Copyright
© 2022 The Author(s). Permission for reuse (free in most cases) can be obtained from copyright.com.
Data Availability Statement
Data generated or analyzed during this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Contact for more information on the website: http://www.shny.fr/.
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Authors
Author Contributions
Conceptualization: FR and LB
Data curation: FR and LC
Formal analysis: FR, SM, and LB
Funding acquisition: LB
Investigation: FR
Methodology: FR, LC, SM, and LB
Resources: FR and LC
Project administration: LB
Software: FR
Supervision: LB
Visualization: FR and SM
Validation: LC, SM, MG, and LB
Writing – original draft: FR
Writing – review & editing: FR, LC, SM, MG, and LB
Competing Interests
Competing interests: The authors declare there are no competing interests.
Funding Information
There are no funders to report for this submission.
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F. Réveillion, L.S. Carvalho, S. Montuire, M. Galipaud, and L. Bollache. 2023. Allometry and sexual dimorphism in three giant whip spider species (Amblypygi, Phrynidae, Heterophrynus). Canadian Journal of Zoology.
101(3): 189-198. https://doi.org/10.1139/cjz-2022-0066
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1. Biodiversity of Arachnids
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