Skip to main content Skip to main navigation menu Skip to site footer
Type: Correspondence
Published: 2019-08-14
Page range: 384–388
Abstract views: 62
PDF downloaded: 2

Pholcus mixiaoqii sp. nov., one new spider species from Tibet, China (Araneae: Pholcidae)

College of Life Science, Shenyang Normal University, Shenyang 110034, Liaoning, China
College of Life Science, Shenyang Normal University, Shenyang 110034, Liaoning, China Liaoning Key Laboratory of Evolution and Biodiversity, Shenyang 110034, Liaoning, China
College of Life Science, Shenyang Normal University, Shenyang 110034, Liaoning, China Liaoning Key Laboratory of Evolution and Biodiversity, Shenyang 110034, Liaoning, China
Araneae Pholcidae

Abstract

The genus Pholcus Walckenaer, 1805 belongs to the family Pholcidae C.L. Koch, 1850, which is a species-rich group, including 94 genera and 1,716 species (World Spider Catalog 2019). Pholcus is mainly distributed in the Palaearctic, Indo-Malayan, Afrotropical, and Australasian Region (Huber 2011). The only exception is the Pholcus kingi group with ten species in the southeastern USA (Huber 2011). The genus includes species from a wide range of habitats, e.g., between buttresses, in small holes or caves, among and under large rocks, or on the underside of green leaves (Huber 2011). Many taxonomic changes were implemented on the latest molecular phylogeny analyses (Eberle et al. 2018; Huber et al. 2018), including nine new genera resulted from splitting Pholcus: Cantikus Huber, 2018, Kelabita Huber, 2018, Kintaqa Huber, 2018, Meraha Huber, 2018, Muruta Huber, 2018, Paiwana Huber, 2018, Pribumia Huber, 2018, Teranga Huber, 2018, and Tissahamia Huber, 2018. The genus Sihala Huber, 2011 was synonymized with Pholcus and the species Pholcus agadir Huber, 2011 was moved to Micropholcus Deeleman-Reinhold & Prinsen, 1987 (Huber et al. 2018). Nevertheless, Pholcus continues to be the most species-rich genus in Pholcidae and currently includes 328 species belonging to 21 species-groups [previously: 393 species and 32 species-groups] (Huber 2011; Huber et al. 2018; World Spider Catalog 2019). One of the generic species-groups, the Pholcus nenjukovi species-group, contains eight species and occurs in northeastern Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Russia (the single record of Pholcus sidorenkoi Dunin, 1994 from Russia is dubious, see Huber 2011: 339). In the present study, we describe a new species from southwestern Tibet, China assigned to the Pholcus nenjukovi species-group. This distribution represents the eastern most record for the species-group (Fig. 1).

 

References

  1. Deeleman-Reinhold, C.L. & Prinsen, J.D. (1987) Micropholcus fauroti (Simon) n. comb., a pantropical, synanthropic spider (Araneae: Pholcidae). Entomologische Berichten, Amsterdam, 47, 73–77.

    Dong, T., Zheng, G., Davlatov, A., Yao, Z. & Li, S. (2017) Two new species of the spider genus Pholcus Walckenaer, 1805 (Araneae, Pholcidae) from Tajikistan, with the first description of female Pholcus sidorenkoi Dunin, 1994. European Journal of Taxonomy, 301, 1–14.

    https://doi.org/10.5852/ejt.2017.301

    Dunin, P.M. (1994) Pholcus sidorenkoi sp. n., a new species of pholcid spiders (Aranei, Haplogynae, Pholcidae) from the Volga region. Zoologicheskiĭ Zhurnal, 73 (3), 136–138.

    Eberle, J., Dimitrov, D., Valdez-Mondragón, A. & Huber, B.A. (2018) Microhabitat change drives diversification in pholcid spiders. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 18, 141.

    https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-018-1244-8

    Fuesslin, J.C. (1775) Verzeichnis der ihm bekannten schweizerischen Insekten, mit einer ausgemahlten Kupfertafel: nebst der Ankündigung eines neuen Inseckten Werkes. Zürich and Winterthur, 62 pp. [Araneae, pp. 60–61]

    https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.65772

    Huber, B.A. (2011) Revision and cladistic analysis of Pholcus and closely related taxa (Araneae, Pholcidae). Bonner Zoologische Monographien, 58, 1–509.

    Huber, B.A., Eberle, J. & Dimitrov, D. (2018) The phylogeny of pholcid spiders: a critical evaluation of relationships suggested by molecular data (Araneae, Pholcidae). ZooKeys, 789, 51–101.

    https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.789.22781

    Khmelik, V.V., Kozub, D. & Glazunov, A. (2006) Helicon Focus 6.6.1. Available from: http://www.heliconsoft.com/ heliconfocus.html (accessed 20 June 2019)

    Koch, C.L. (1850) Übersicht des Arachnidensystems. J.L. Lotzbeck, Nürnberg, Heft 5, 77 pp.

    Senglet, A. (2008) New species of Pholcus and Spermophora (Pholcidae, Araneae) from Iran and Afghanistan, with notes on mating mechanisms. Revue Suisse de Zoologie, 115, 355–376.

    https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.part.80432

    Walckenaer, C.A. (1805) Tableau des Aranéides ou Caractères Essentiels des Tribus, Genres, Familles et Races que Renfermele Genre Aranea de Linné, Avec la Désignation des Espèces Comprises dans Chacune de ces Divisions. de l’imprimerie de Dentu, Paris, 88 pp.

    World Spider Catalog (2019) World spider catalog, version 20.0. Natural History Museum Bern. Available from: http://wsc.nmbe.ch (accessed 25 June 2019)

    Yao, Z., Pham, D.S. & Li, S. (2015) Pholcid spiders (Araneae: Pholcidae) from northern Vietnam, with descriptions of nineteen new species. Zootaxa, 3909 (1), 1–82.

    https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3909.1.1