Three new species of the open-holed trapdoor spider genus Proshermacha (Mygalomorphae: Anamidae) from southwest Western Australia

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Three new species of the open-holed trapdoor spider genus Proshermacha (Mygalomorphae: Anamidae) from southwest Western Australia

Abstract

The Australian endemic open-holed trapdoor spider genus Proshermacha Simon, 1908 currently contains 13 described species distributed throughout southern Australia. We describe three new species from the Southwest Australia biodiversity hotspot: Proshermacha katana sp. nov. and Proshermacha rapier sp. nov. from the Esperance Plains bioregion, and Proshermacha scimitar sp. nov. from the Esperance Plains and Jarrah Forest bioregions. We further conduct a multilocus molecular analysis to reveal the phylogenetic placement of two of these newly-described species.

Sagastume-Espinoza KO, Wilson JD & Harvey MS (2025). Three new species of the open-holed trapdoor spider genus Proshermacha (Mygalomorphae: Anamidae) from southwest Western Australia. Australian Journal of Taxonomy 104: 1–20. doi: https://doi.org/10.54102/ajt.jgkav