Two new species of the primitively segmented spider genus Songthela from Hunan Province, China (Mesothelae, Liphistiidae)

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Abstract

This study reports two new species of the primitively segmented spider genus Songthela from Hunan Province, China, based on morphological characters: S. huangyang sp. nov. (♂♀), S. xiangnan sp. nov. (♂♀). Additional material also facilitates a more accurate description of S. goulouensis (Yin, 2001) with the first description of the male. Nucleotide data for the barcoding gene, cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI), is also provided for these three species.

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A genus-level taxonomic review of primitively segmented spiders (Mesothelae, Liphistiidae)

Xin Xu, Fengxiang Liu, Jian Chen … (2015)

Abstract The spider suborder Mesothelae , containing a single extant family Liphistiidae , represents a species-poor and ancient lineage. These are conspicuous spiders that primitively retain a segmented abdomen and appendage-like spinnerets. While their classification history is nearly devoid of phylogenetic hypotheses, we here revise liphistiid genus level taxonomy based on original sampling throughout their Asian range, and on the evidence from a novel molecular phylogeny. By combining morphological and natural history evidence with phylogenetic relationships in the companion paper, we provide strong support for the monophyly of Liphistiidae , and the two subfamilies Liphistiinae and Heptathelinae . While the former only contains Liphistius Schiödte, 1849, a genus distributed in Indonesia (Sumatra), Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, we recognize and diagnose seven heptatheline genera, all but three removed from the synonymy of Heptathela : i) Ganthela Xu & Kuntner, gen. n. with the type species Ganthela yundingensis Xu, sp. n. is known from Fujian and Jiangxi, China; ii) a rediagnosed Heptathela Kishida, 1923 is confined to the Japanese islands (Kyushu and Okinawa); iii) Qiongthela Xu & Kuntner, gen. n. with the type species Qiongthela baishensis Xu, sp. n. is distributed disjunctly in Hainan, China and Vietnam; iv) Ryuthela Haupt, 1983 is confined to the Ryukyu archipelago (Japan); v) Sinothela Haupt, 2003 inhabits Chinese areas north of Yangtze; vi) Songthela Ono, 2000 inhabits southwest China and northern Vietnam; and vii) Vinathela Ono, 2000 ( Abcathela Ono, 2000, syn. n.; Nanthela Haupt, 2003, syn. n.) is known from southeast China and Vietnam.