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The southern South American genus Guaranita includes tiny spiders (body length ~1 mm) that lead reclusive lives under ground-objects and run rapidly when disturbed. As a result, they have been poorly collected and studied. Here we report on a recent collection of Guaranita spiders from Argentina, describing one new species (G. auadae Huber sp. nov.) and the previously unknown female of G. dobby Torres et al., 2016. In addition, we provide CO1 barcodes for all (now five) known species, first SEM data, and first chromosome data for the genus. The diploid number of Guaranita goloboffi Huber, 2000 (2n♂ = 11) is among the lowest in araneomorph spiders with monocentric chromosome structure.
Revisions of Holocnemus and Crossopriza: the spotted-leg clade of Smeringopinae (Araneae, Pholcidae)
(2022)
The genera Holocnemus Simon, 1873 and Crossopriza Simon, 1893 are revised. Together with Stygopholcus Kratochvíl, 1932 (revised recently) and the newly described genus Maghreba gen. nov., they constitute the spotted-leg clade within the northern clade of Smeringopinae. Males and females in this group are characterized by dark marks on the leg femora and tibiae. The native area of the spotted-leg clade ranges from northern Africa and the Mediterranean to Central Asia and NW India. A morphological cladistic analysis suggests that Holocnemus is paraphyletic while Crossopriza is monophyletic, but morphology seems only partly adequate to resolve phylogenetic relationships convincingly. The genus Holocnemus includes four species, all of which are redescribed: H. pluchei (Scopoli, 1763); H. reini (C. Koch, 1873) comb. nov. (transferred from Pholcus); H. caudatus (Dufour, 1820); and H. hispanicus Wiehle, 1933. The genus Maghreba gen. nov. includes eight species from NW Africa: M. aurouxi (Barrientos, 2019) gen. et comb. nov. (transferred from Holocnemus; redescribed, female newly described) and seven newly described species. The genus Crossopriza includes six previously described species (of which five are redescribed), and 18 newly described species. The Madagascan C. nigrescens Millot, 1946 is synonymized with C. lyoni (Blackwall, 1867). All new species are described on the basis of both sexes.
We revise the Southeast Asian Pholcus bicornutus group in which males are characterized by a unique pair of horns on their ocular area, each of which carries at its tip a brush of hairs. In two species, the two hair brushes are ‘glued’ or ‘waxed’ together by an unidentified substance into a very consistently curved and pointed single median tip. In the other five species known, the hairs are unglued. We present a first revision of ocular modifications in Pholcidae and identify twenty supposedly independent origins. Most cases are in Pholcinae, and all but one case are limited to the male, suggesting sexual selection as the main driving force in the evolution of ocular modifications in Pholcidae. Previously, the Pholcus bicornutus group consisted of four species limited to the Philippines. We describe four new species, including three species from the Philippines (P. olangapo Huber, sp. nov.; P. kawit Huber, sp. nov.; P. baguio Huber, sp. nov.) and the first representative from outside the Philippines (P. mulu Huber, sp. nov. from Sarawak, NE Borneo) and provide new records and SEM data for three previously described species.