An Overlooked Species of Enigmatic Wolf Spider (Araneae: Lycosidae) Clarifies the Mysterious Distribution of its Sibling

Posted by
  An Overlooked Species of Enigmatic Wolf Spider (Araneae: Lycosidae) Clarifies the Mysterious Distribution of its Sibling Abstract Several wolf spiders exhibit a peculiar geographical distribution. One good example of this is Pardosa aenigmatica Tongiorgi, 1966, recently recognized in Italy and the Middle East but missing in the Balkans. A comparison of populations from the disjunctive areas revealed that they would be better described as two distinct species. As a result, here we describe Pardosa sepidehae sp. nov. The paper includes detailed descriptions and comparative illustrations of male and female copulatory organs for the newly discovered species and P. aenigmatica. Pardosa sepidehae sp. nov. is distributed in the Middle East, whereas P. aenigmatica remains endemic to the Apennine Peninsula. Adile Akpinar, Petr Dolejš "An Overlooked Species of Enigmatic Wolf Spider (Araneae: Lycosidae) Clarifies the Mysterious Distribution of its Sibling," Annales Zoologici, 76(29), ...

Accessing the challenges of descriptive morphology in Barychelidae and Theraphosidae through a morphometric approach (Araneae, Mygalomorphae)

Posted by

 


Accessing the challenges of descriptive morphology in Barychelidae and Theraphosidae through a morphometric approach (Araneae, Mygalomorphae)

Abstract

Phylogenetic studies have confirmed that Barychelidae is a sister group of Theraphosidae. However, taxonomic instability has led to the transfer of genera between the two families, both families show overlapping diagnostic characteristics, indicating a similarity making species differentiation challenging. In this study, we conducted an evaluation of three morphological characters that are commonly used to distinguish Barychelidae and Theraphosidae. We employed geometric morphometric to analyze variations in the shapes of the maxilla, labium, and the eyes arrangement. Our results revealed that these characters show continuous variation, which can make it problematic for discrete categorization and differentiation between Barychelidae and Theraphosidae. On the other hand, our analysis showed that the shape of the eye arrangement is effective in distinguishing the subfamilies within Barychelidae. Furthermore, we found notable distinctions between these characters on the Neotropical Sasoninae genera compared to the Sason Simon, 1887. Therefore, highlights the importance of incorporation of morphometric analyses into taxonomic and cladistics studies to improve the understanding of distinctions between families that are considered as sister groups.

Hector M. O. GONZALEZ-FILHO, Maria T. COLPANI-SARTORI, Arthur GALLETI-LIMA et al. Accessing the challenges of descriptive morphology in Barychelidae and Theraphosidae through a morphometric approach (Araneae, Mygalomorphae), 30 January 2026, PREPRINT (Version 1) available at Research Square [https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8385809/v1]