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...

Morphological revision of the species of Homoeomma Ausserer, 1871 (Araneae: Theraphosidae) from Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay

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Morphological revision of the species of Homoeomma Ausserer, 1871 (Araneae: Theraphosidae) from Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay

Abstract

The Neotropical tarantula genus Homoeomma Ausserer, 1871 is reviewed. After examining type specimens and redescribing several species, H. stradlingi O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1881 and H. strabo (Simon, 1892) are considered junior synonyms of H. familiare Bertkau, 1880; henceforth, the senior synonym of the type species of the genus, and now with a known male representative. H. nigrum is considered nomem dubium. Additionally, Homoeomma hirsutum (Mello-Leitão, 1935) is considered junior synonym of H. montanum (Mello-Leitão, 1923). We also describe the female of H. brasilianum (Chamberlin, 1917). Homoeomma now comprises 12 valid species distributed across Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Uruguay.

Galleti-Lima, A., Yamamoto, F.U., Lucas, S.M., Guadanucci, J.P.L. & Brescovit, A.D. (2026) Morphological revision of the species of Homoeomma Ausserer, 1871 (Araneae: Theraphosidae) from Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. Zootaxa, 5752 (2), 211–237. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5752.2.3