Testing the Limits of Morphology: A Comprehensive Morphometric Study of the Sister Lineages Lasiocyano Galleti-Lima, Hamilton, Borges and Guadanucci, 2023 and Lasiodora C. L. Koch, 1850 (Theraphosidae, Mygalomorphae)

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  Testing the Limits of Morphology: A Comprehensive Morphometric Study of the Sister Lineages Lasiocyano Galleti-Lima, Hamilton, Borges and Guadanucci, 2023 and Lasiodora C. L. Koch, 1850 (Theraphosidae, Mygalomorphae) ABSTRACT Morphological conservatism and homoplasy pose significant challenges for the systematics of mygalomorph spiders, limiting the number of reliable morphological characters available for species identification, particularly in Theraphosidae. Closely related taxa frequently display high phenotypic similarity, which limits the resolution of morphology-based approaches. In this study, we conducted the most extensive morphometric analysis to date within Theraphosidae, with the objective of explicitly testing how much morphological information is retained within the  Lasiocyano sazimai  and  Lasiodora  lineage. We applied a morphometric framework combining linear morphometry and geometric morphometry, including multivariate statistics, discrimina...

Photo Identification Guide of the Atypidae (Araneae) of South Africa

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Photo Identification Guide of the Atypidae (Araneae) of South Africa

Description

The family Atypidae is known from five genera and 90 species (World Spider Catalog 2020). Only one genus, Calommata Lucas, 1837, represented by 13 species, are known from Africa and two of them from South Africa. They are very rare spiders and both of them are restricted endemics. Calommata meridionalis Fourie, Haddad & Jocqué, 2011 is listed as Near Threatened under the B criterion and Calommata transvaalica Hewitt, 1916 Vulnerable under the B criterion. CONTENTS

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