Skip to main content Skip to main navigation menu Skip to site footer
Responsive image
Issue: Vol. 5399 No. 5: 16 Jan. 2024
Type: Article
Published: 2024-01-16
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5399.5.1
Page range: 451-504
Abstract views: 160
PDF downloaded: 79

Three new genera of arboreal dark sac spiders from southern Africa (Araneae: Trachelidae)

Department of Zoology and Entomology; University of the Free State; P.O. Box 339; Bloemfontein 9300; South Africa
Biosystematics: Arachnology; Plant Health and Protection; Agricultural Research Council; Private Bag X134; Queenswood 0121; South Africa
Araneae afrotropical canopy fogging cytochrome oxidase c subunit I DNA barcoding Trachelas

Abstract

As part of a revision of the Afrotropical species of Trachelas L. Koch, 1872 (Araneae: Trachelidae), we distinguished three new genera of primarily arboreal spiders from southern Africa that are described here: Coronarachne gen. nov., represented by four new species known from both sexes, C. denticulata sp. nov. (type species), C. penicillus sp. nov., C. setosa sp. nov. and C. unigena sp. nov., and C. neethlingi sp. nov., known only from the male; Falcaranea gen. nov., represented by three new species known from both sexes, F. amatola sp. nov., F. gladius sp. nov. (type species) and F. maputensis sp. nov.; and Trachecymbius gen. nov., represented by five new species, T. bosselaersi sp. nov. (♀), T. felis sp. nov. (♂♀), T. peterwebbi sp. nov. (♂), T. tyume sp. nov. (type species, ♂♀), and T. umbella sp. nov. (♀). These three genera share the presence of strongly protruding setal bases on the ventral surfaces of the anterior legs, which are more strongly developed in males and can be mistaken for small ventral cusps that are found in several trachelid genera. Identification keys are provided for each of the three genera and their phylogenetic affinities to other Afrotropical Trachelidae are evaluated based on the cytochrome oxidase c subunit I (COI) gene. Most of the species described here were common in canopy fogging samples, and to a lesser extent beating, but are clearly a prominent component of the arboreal trachelid fauna in savanna and forest habitats in southern Africa.

 

References

  1. Álvarez-Padilla, F. & Hormiga, G. (2007) A protocol for digesting internal soft tissues and mounting spiders for scanning electron microscopy. Journal of Arachnology, 35, 538–542. https://doi.org/10.1636/Sh06-55.1
  2. Azevedo, G.H.F, Bougie, T., Carboni, M., Hedin, M. & Ramírez, M.J. (2022) Combining genomic, phenotypic and sanger sequencing data to elucidate the phylogeny of the two-clawed spiders (Dionycha). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 166, 107327. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2021.107327
  3. Basset, Y., Novotny, V., Miller, S.E. & Kitching, R.L. (2003) Canopy entomology, an expanding field of natural science. In: Basset, Y., Novotny, V., Miller, S.E. & Kitching, R.L. (Eds.), Arthropods of tropical forests: Spatio-temporal dynamics and resource use in the canopy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 4–6.
  4. Bosselaers, J. & Jocqué, R. (2002) Studies in Corinnidae: cladistic analysis of 38 corinnid and liocranid genera, and transfer of Phrurolithinae. Zoologica Scripta, 31, 241–270. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1463-6409.2002.00080.x
  5. Bosselaers, J., Urones, C., Barrientos, J.A. & Alberdi, J.M. (2009) On the Mediterranean species of Trachelinae (Araneae, Corinnidae) with a revision of Trachelas L. Koch 1872 on the Iberian Peninsula. Journal of Arachnology, 37, 15–38. https://doi.org/10.1636/a08-33.1
  6. Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding [CCDB] (2019) CCDB Protocols. Cited 1 November 2019. CCDB [Internet], Guelph. Available from: http://ccdb.ca/site/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/CCDB_Amplification.pdf (accessed 19 December 2023)
  7. Deeleman-Reinhold, C.L. (2001) Forest spiders of South East Asia: with a revision of the sac and ground spiders (Araneae: Clubionidae, Corinnidae, Liocranidae, Gnaphosidae, Prodidomidae and Trochanterriidae [sic]). Brill, Leiden, 591 pp. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004475588
  8. Dippenaar-Schoeman, A.S., Haddad, C.R., Foord, S.H., Lyle, R., Lotz, L.N. & Marais, P. (2015) South African National Survey of Arachnida (SANSA): review of current knowledge, constraints and future needs for documenting spider diversity (Arachnida: Araneae). Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa, 70, 245–275. https://doi.org/10.1080/0035919X.2015.1088486
  9. Dippenaar-Schoeman, A.S. & Jocqué, R. (1997) African spiders: an identification manual. Plant Protection Research Institute handbook No. 9. Agricultural Research Council, Pretoria, 392 pp.
  10. Dippenaar-Schoeman, A.S., Van den Berg, A.M., Van den Berg, M.A. & Foord, S.H. (2005) Spiders in avocado orchards in the Mpumalanga Lowveld of South Africa: species diversity and abundance (Arachnida: Araneae). African Plant Protection, 11, 8–16.
  11. Dippenaar-Schoeman, A.S., Van den Berg, M.A. & Van den Berg, A.M. (2001) Spiders in macadamia orchards in the Mpumalanga Lowveld of South Africa: species diversity and abundance (Arachnida: Araneae). African Plant Protection, 7, 39–46.
  12. Edgar, R.C. (2004) MUSCLE: a multiple sequence alignment method with reduced time and space complexity. BMC Bioinformatics, 5, 113. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2105-5-113
  13. Erwin, T.L. (1983) Tropical forest canopies: the last biological frontier. Bulletin of the Entomological Society of America, 19, 14–19. https://doi.org/10.1093/besa/29.1.14
  14. Fannes, W., De Bakker, D., Loosveldt, K. & Jocqué, R. (2008) Estimating the diversity of arboreal oonopid spider assemblages (Araneae, Oonopidae) at Afrotropical sites. Journal of Arachnology, 36, 322–330. https://doi.org/10.1636/CT07-128.1
  15. Gajski, D., Wolff, J.O., Melcher, A., Weber, S., Prost, S., Krehenwinkel, H. & Kennedy, S.R. (in press) Facilitating taxonomy and phylogenetics: An informative and cost-effective protocol integrating long amplicon PCRs and third generation sequencing. Molecular Phylogenetics & Evolution. [published online] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2023.107988
  16. Haddad, C.R. (2006) Spinotrachelas, a new genus of tracheline sac spiders from South Africa (Araneae: Corinnidae). African Invertebrates, 47, 85–93.
  17. Haddad, C.R., Dippenaar-Schoeman, A.S. & Pekár, S. (2005) Arboreal spiders (Arachnida: Araneae) in pistachio orchards in South Africa. African Plant Protection, 11, 32–41.
  18. Haddad, C.R., Jin, C. & Platnick, N.I. (2022) A revision of the spider genus Orthobula Simon, 1897 (Araneae: Trachelidae in the Afrotropical Region. I. Continental species. Zootaxa, 5133 (3), 355–382. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5133.3.3
  19. Haddad, C.R., Jin, C., Platnick, N.I. & Booysen, R. (2021) Capobula gen. nov., a new Afrotropical dark sac spider genus related to Orthobula Simon, 1897 (Araneae: Trachelidae). Zootaxa, 4942 (1), 41–71. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4942.1.2
  20. Haddad, C.R. & Lyle, R. (2008) Three new genera of tracheline sac spiders from southern Africa (Araneae: Corinnidae). African Invertebrates, 49, 37–76. https://doi.org/10.5733/afin.049.0204
  21. Haddad, C.R., Lyle, R., Bosselaers, J. & Ramírez, M.J. (2009) A revision of the endemic South African spider genus Austrachelas, with its transfer to the Gallieniellidae (Arachnida: Araneae). Zootaxa, 2296 (1), 1–38. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.2296.1.1
  22. Jin, C., Yin, X.C. & Zhang, F. (2017) Four new species of the genus Trachelas L. Koch, 1872 and the first record of T. vulcani Simon, 1896 from south-west China (Araneae: Trachelidae). Zootaxa, 4324 (1), 23–49. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4324.1.2
  23. Jocqué, R. & Dippenaar-Schoeman, A.S. (2006) Spider families of the world. Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, 336 pp.
  24. Khoza, T.T. & Lyle, R. (2019) Four new species of the sac spider genus Planochelas Lyle & Haddad, 2009 (Araneae, Trachelidae) from central and southern Africa. African Invertebrates, 60, 147–162. https://doi.org/10.3897/AfrInvertebr.60.35269
  25. Kulkarni, S., Wood, H.M. & Hormiga, G. (2023) Advances in the reconstruction of the spider tree of life: a roadmap for spider systematics and comparative studies. Cladistics, 39, 479–532.
  26. https://doi.org/10.1111/cla.12557
  27. Lyle, R. & Haddad, C.R. (2009) Planochelas, a new genus of tracheline sac spiders from West and Central Africa. Annals of the Transvaal Museum, 46, 91–100.
  28. Lyle, R. & Haddad, C.R. (2010) A revision of the tracheline sac spider genus Cetonana Strand, 1929 in the Afrotropical Region, with descriptions of two new genera (Araneae: Corinnidae). African Invertebrates, 51, 321–384. https://doi.org/10.5733/afin.051.0206
  29. Lyle, R. & Haddad, C.R. (2018) Jocquestus gen. nov., a new genus of trachelid sac spiders from the Afrotropical Region (Arachnida: Araneae). Zootaxa, 4471 (2), 309–333
  30. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4471.2.4
  31. Magalhaes, I.L.F., Martins, P.H., Nogueira, A.A. & Santos, A.J. (2017) Finding hot singles: matching males to females in dimorphic spiders (Araneidae: Micrathena) using phylogenetic placement and DNA barcoding. Invertebrate Systematics, 31, 8–36. https://doi.org/10.1071/IS15062
  32. Moran, V.C. & Southwood, T.R.E. (1982) The guild composition of arthropod communities on trees. Journal of Animal Ecology, 51, 289–306. https://doi.org/10.2307/4325
  33. Ramírez, M.J. (2014) The morphology and phylogeny of dionychan spiders (Araneae: Araneomorphae). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 390, 1−374. https://doi.org/10.1206/821.1
  34. Ratnasingham, S. & Hebert, P.D.N. (2007) BOLD: The Barcode of Life Data System (www.barcodinglife.org). Molecular Ecology Notes, 7, 355–364. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-8286.2006.01678.x
  35. Ratnasingham, S. & Hebert, P.D.N. (2013) A DNA-based registry for all animal species: the Barcode Index Number (BIN) system. PLoS ONE, 8, e66213. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0066213
  36. Robinson, E.A., Blagoev, G.A., Hebert, P.D.N. & Adamowicz, S.J. (2009) Prospects for using DNA barcoding to identify spiders in species-rich genera. ZooKeys, 16, 27–46. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.16.239
  37. Seyfulina, R.R. & De Bakker, D. (2008) Linyphiid spiders (Araneae, Linyphiidae) from African forest canopies. Revista Iberica de Arachnologia, 15, 67–79.
  38. Shorthouse, D.P. (2010) SimpleMappr, an online tool to produce publication-quality point maps. Available from: http://www.simplemappr.net (accessed 27 September 2023)
  39. Simon, E. (1897) Histoire naturelle des araignées. Tome Second. Deuxième Édition. Roret, Paris, 192 pp. https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.51973
  40. Sørensen, L.L. (2004) Composition and diversity of the spider fauna in the canopy of a montane forest in Tanzania. Biodiversity and Conservation, 13, 437–452. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:BIOC.0000006510.49496.1e
  41. Southwood, T.R.E., Moran, V.C. & Kennedy, C.E.J. (1982) The richness, abundance and biomass of the arthropod communities on trees. Journal of Animal Ecology, 51, 635–649. https://doi.org/10.2307/3988
  42. Stork, N.E., Grimbacher, P.S., Storer, S., Oberprieler, R.G., Reid, C. & Slipinski, S.A. (2008) What determines whether a species of insect is described? Evidence from a study of tropical forest beetles. Insect Conservation and Diversity, 1, 114–119. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-4598.2008.00016.x
  43. Talavera, G., Lukhtanov, V., Pierce, N. & Vila, R. (2022) DNA barcodes combined with multilocus data of representative taxa can generate reliable higher-level phylogenies. Systematic Biology, 71, 382–395. https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syab038
  44. Wheeler, W.C., Coddington, J.A., Crowley, L.M., Dimitrov, D., Goloboff, P.A., Griswold, C.E., Hormiga, G., Prendini, L., Ramírez, M.J., Sierwald, P., Almeida-Silva, L.M., Álvarez-Padilla, F., Arnedo, M.A., Benavides, L.R., Benjamin, S.P., Bond, J.E., Grismado, C.J., Hasan, E., Hedin, M., Izquierdo, M.A., Labarque, F.M., Ledford, J, Lopardo, L., Maddison, W.P., Miller, J.A., Piacentini, L.N., Platnick, N.I., Polotow, D., Silva-Dávila, D., Scharff, N., Szűts, T., Ubick, D., Vink, C., Wood, H.M. & Zhang, J.X. (2017) The spider tree of life: phylogeny of Araneae based on target-gene analyses from an extensive taxon sampling. Cladistics, 33, 576–616. https://doi.org/10.1111/cla.12182
  45. White, F. (1983) The Vegetation of Africa. UNESCO, Paris, 373 pp.
  46. World Spider Catalog (2023) World Spider Catalog. Version 24.5. Natural History Museum Bern, Bern. Available from: http://wsc.nmbe.ch (accessed 13 November 2023) https://doi.org/10.24436/2