Spitting spiders (Araneae: Scytodidae) from Cretaceous Kachin amber reveal deep divergence times and Burma Terrane-linked biogeography

Posted by
  Spitting spiders (Araneae: Scytodidae) from Cretaceous Kachin amber reveal deep divergence times and Burma Terrane-linked biogeography Abstract The family Scytodidae is known for its unique spitting predatory mechanism, but its fossil record is extremely scarce, with reliable Mesozoic records previously lacking. Based on two male specimens preserved in Kachin amber, we report the first unequivocal Cretaceous record of this family—† Stedotuber gen. nov., with two new species, † S. longitibialis sp. nov. and † S. brevitibialis sp. nov. Maximum parsimony analysis of morphological characters recovers the new genus within the subfamily Scyloxinae, forming a sister-group relationship with the extant genus Stedocys . Tip-dating analyses estimate the crown age of Scytodidae at the Late Jurassic (~150.32 Ma), the crown age of Scyloxinae in the Early Cretaceous (~136.71 Ma), and the split between † Stedotuber gen. nov. and Stedocys in the late Early Cretaceous (~123.68 Ma), all substa...

A new species of Badumna Thorell, 1890 from Xizang, China (Araneae: Desidae)

Posted by

 


A new species of Badumna Thorell, 1890 from Xizang, China (Araneae: Desidae)

Abstract

Badumna zhentang sp. nov. (♂♀) is described from Xizang, China. Morphological descriptions and photos of habitus and copulatory organs are provided, along with comparative images of B. tangae Zhu, Zhang & Yang, 2006, the other Chinese species. Both species were collected along the Chinese border with Nepal or Myanmar, inhabit mountainous regions, and represent the northernmost distributional limit of the genus Badumna and the subfamily Desinae.

Pu, W., Wang, L.-Y. & Zhang, Z.-S. (2026) A new species of Badumna Thorell, 1890 from Xizang, China (Araneae: Desidae). Zootaxa, 5897 (1), 91–97. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5897.1.7