Hunting ecology predicts eye arrangements in the modular visual system of spiders

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  Hunting ecology predicts eye arrangements in the modular visual system of spiders Summary Vision is one of the most important senses used by animals and contributes to fundamental behaviors, including foraging, navigation, and mate detection and selection. 1 Although much is known about how eye position and orientation correlate to ecology in the context of binocularity, 2 animals with multipartite visual systems (more than two eyes) remain comparatively neglected. Spiders are highly successful predators that occupy a range of ecological niches and usually possess eight eyes. Here, we use three-dimensional geometric morphometrics and evolutionary modeling to test whether eye positions, orientations, and interocular angles correlate with hunting strategies in 52 species across the spider phylogeny. We demonstrate that eye configurations diversified from an ancestral medial cluster, as seen in modern trapdoor spiders, to a halo-like configuration in orb-weavers, and to the fronta...

Studies on spider nomenclature II: a synonymy and misidentification in Asian Pholcus Walckenaer, 1805 (Araneae: Pholcidae)

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Studies on spider nomenclature II: a synonymy and misidentification in Asian Pholcus Walckenaer, 1805 (Araneae: Pholcidae)

Abstract
In this work, the synonymy suggested by Yao, Tavano & Li (2013) is confirmed and proposed formally. Furthermore, the material tentatively identified by Huber (2011) as P. gracillimus is determined to be a new species, matching no species known at the time of Huber (2011), nor any of the Pholcus species described after 2011. It is thus formally described herein and nomenclatural implications for the naming of informal species groups in Pholcus is given. 

Sherwood, Danniella. (2025). Studies on spider nomenclature II: a synonymy and misidentification in Asian Pholcus Walckenaer, 1805 (Araneae: Pholcidae). Arachnology. 20. 34-36. 

Danni Sherwood via ResearchGate