On a new synonym in the genus Sphingius Thorell, 1890 from India (Araneae: Liocranidae)
Simon (1906) described the liocranid species Sphingius bilineatus Simon, 1906 based on a single female specimen
collected from the Puducherry Union Territory of India. The original description of this species (Simon 1906) lacks
illustrations of the genital organs, which hinders its accurate taxonomic identification. Gravely (1931) redescribed
and illustrated S. bilineatus based on male and female specimens collected from the southern Indian state of Kerala,
located approximately 283 km away from its type locality (Mahé). In the same work, he also described another species,
Sphingius barkudensis Gravely, 1931 based on male and female specimens, collected from the Barkuda Island (Odisha)
and Bengaluru (Karnataka), India. While redescribing S. barkudensis, Sankaran et al. (2020) suggested, but did not
formally establish, a possible synonymy of S. barkudensis with S. bilineatus, based on Gravely’s illustration of the latter
species (Gravely 1931: fig. 19J–K). A recent examination of the holotype female of S. bilineatus supports this assumption.
Therefore, the synonymy of S. barkudensis with S. bilineatus is formally proposed here.
Abbreviations used in the text: MNHN—Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France; NZC-ZSI—National
Zoological Collections, Arachnida Section, Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata, West Bengal, India.
I am grateful to Elise-Anne Leguin, MNHN, Paris for sharing the information and the images of the holotype female of
S. bilineatus. Many thanks to Dr Jimmy Paul, Division of Arachnology, Sacred Heart College, Thevara for the distribution
map. I extend my heartfelt thanks to Drs John Caleb (Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, Tamil Nadu,
India) and Feng Zhang (Hebei University, China) for their constructive comments on the manuscript, and to Dr Charles
Haddad (University of the Free State, South Africa) for his editorial efforts.