What’s a Spider? Designation of the Neotype for the First Animal Species Ever Described, Araneus angulatus Clerck 1757 (Araneae: Araneidae)

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  What’s a Spider? Designation of the Neotype for the First Animal Species Ever Described, Araneus angulatus Clerck 1757 (Araneae: Araneidae) Abstract We designate a neotype for the Eurasian spider species Araneus angulatus Clerck, 1757, thereby fixing the objective application of the species name, the genus name Araneus Clerck 1757, the family name Araneidae Clerck 1757, and the superfamily name Araneoidea Clerck 1757. By etymology and arachnological tradition, it also unofficially fixes the application of the ordinal name Araneae Clerck 1757 and thus answers the uncontroversial question, “What’s a spider?” A. angulatus also happens to be historically the first animal species ever described because Clerck (1757) has priority over Linnaeus (1758). Neotype designation is justified for three reasons: the syntypes of A. angulatus are lost; “ A. angulatus ” contains significant COI sequence divergence, potentially representing intraspecific variation, misidentifications, or as many...

Illustrated Catalog of African brush-footed trapdoor spiders: type specimens from the Royal Museum for Central Africa (Araneae, Mygalomorphae, Barychelidae)

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Illustrated Catalog of African brush-footed trapdoor spiders: type specimens from the Royal Museum for Central Africa (Araneae, Mygalomorphae, Barychelidae)

The brush-footed trapdoor spiders (Barychelidae Simon, 1889) represent a family of mygalomorphs that includes 285 species spread in 39 genera. Barychelids are mainly tropical spiders, distributed from South America to Oceania. The African barychelid fauna is the second most diverse in number of spiders described within the family, with 41 species known from nine different genera. Following several published taxonomic works of Pierre L. G. Benoit in the mid-1960s, few taxonomic revisions of Barychelidae have been proposed since from the African continent. To avoid deterioration and loss of information from the type specimens, we have made efforts to digitise these specimens, which serve as the definitive references and physical representations of the species. Among 174 mygalomorph types deposited at the Royal Museum of Central Africa (RMCA) in Belgium, Barychelidae is represented by 16 species from five different genera. The present paper aims to provide illustrations of important morphological characters. Additionally, we herein considered the species Cyphonisia straba Benoit, 1966, Pisenor selindanus (Benoit, 1966), and Sipalolasma humicola (Benoit, 1965) as species inquirendae, and S. warnantae Benoit, 1966 as senior synonym of S. kissi Benoit, 1966. This work aspires to improve the understanding and accessibility of name-bearing types through the cataloguing and digitisation of type specimens of Barychelidae deposited at the RMCA.

GONZALEZ-FILHO H. M. O., COLPANI-SARTORI M. T., HENRARD A., GUADANUCCI J. P. L. & BRESCOVIT A. D. 2024. — Illustrated Catalog of African brush-footed trapdoor spiders: type specimens from the Royal Museum for Central Africa (Araneae, Mygalomorphae, Barychelidae). Zoosystema 46 (26): 671-695. https://doi.org/10.5252/zoosystema2024v46a26. http://zoosystema.com/46/26