An Overlooked Species of Enigmatic Wolf Spider (Araneae: Lycosidae) Clarifies the Mysterious Distribution of its Sibling

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  An Overlooked Species of Enigmatic Wolf Spider (Araneae: Lycosidae) Clarifies the Mysterious Distribution of its Sibling Abstract Several wolf spiders exhibit a peculiar geographical distribution. One good example of this is Pardosa aenigmatica Tongiorgi, 1966, recently recognized in Italy and the Middle East but missing in the Balkans. A comparison of populations from the disjunctive areas revealed that they would be better described as two distinct species. As a result, here we describe Pardosa sepidehae sp. nov. The paper includes detailed descriptions and comparative illustrations of male and female copulatory organs for the newly discovered species and P. aenigmatica. Pardosa sepidehae sp. nov. is distributed in the Middle East, whereas P. aenigmatica remains endemic to the Apennine Peninsula. Adile Akpinar, Petr Dolejš "An Overlooked Species of Enigmatic Wolf Spider (Araneae: Lycosidae) Clarifies the Mysterious Distribution of its Sibling," Annales Zoologici, 76(29), ...

Uncovering the worldwide footprint of an ancient relictual lineage of harvestmen: new genus and species of Buemarinoidae from Australia (Opiliones: Laniatores: Triaenonychoidea)

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Uncovering the worldwide footprint of an ancient relictual lineage of harvestmen: new genus and species of Buemarinoidae from Australia (Opiliones: Laniatores: Triaenonychoidea)

Abstract

Phocyx gen. nov. and Phocyx australis sp. nov. have been newly described from New South Wales, Australia. This represents the first record of the family Buemarinoidae in Australia, thereby remarkably extending the known distribution of this ancient and relictual group of Opiliones. Our descriptions include images of genital morphology, a critical element in group diagnosis. Additionally, we present a discourse on the conserved external morphology within Triaenonychoidea and underscore the significance of genital morphology in the taxonomy of this superfamily. Very low species diversity and relict taxa surviving in scattered isolated refugia (tropical environments of the Southern Hemisphere and hypogean habitats of the Northern Hemisphere) are a clear signature that extinction probably played a major role in shaping the current distribution ranges of Buemarinoidae. That is also reflected in buemarinoid systematics by the prevalence of monotypic genera, a product of the large-scale extinction process affecting this old harvestman lineage.

Willians Porto, Lionel Monod, Abel Pérez-González, Uncovering the worldwide footprint of an ancient relictual lineage of harvestmen: new genus and species of Buemarinoidae from Australia (Opiliones: Laniatores: Triaenonychoidea), Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2024;, zlae067, https://doi.org/10.1093/zoolinnean/zlae067