As part of the German Barcode of Life campaign, over 3500 arachnid specimens have been collected and analyzed: ca. 3300 Araneae and 200 Opiliones, belonging to almost 600 species (median: 4 individuals/species). This covers about 60% of the spider fauna and more than 70% of the harvestmen fauna recorded for Germany. The overwhelming majority of species could be readily identified through DNA barcoding: median distances between closest species lay around 9% in spiders and 13% in harvestmen, while in 95% of the cases, intraspecific distances were below 2.5% and 8% respectively, with intraspecific medians at 0.3% and 0.2%. However, almost 20 spider species, most notably in the family Lycosidae, could not be separated through DNA barcoding (although many of them present discrete morphological differences). Conspicuously high interspecific distances were found in even more cases, hinting at cryptic species in some instances. A new program is presented: DiStats calculates the statistics needed to meet DNA barcode release criteria. Furthermore, new generic COI primers useful for a wide range of taxa (also other than arachnids) are introduced.

Various publications of the last twelve years have shown that the species richness of the genus Psechrus is much higherthan was assumed 30 years ago. Based upon trends in the structures of the copulatory organs, for the first time, eight spe-cies groups are recognised and, including the present study, 46 species are now known. 20 species are recognised anddescribed as new: P. ulcus sp. nov., P. aluco sp. nov., P. decollatus sp. nov., P. elachys sp. nov., P. norops sp. nov., P.arcuatus sp. nov., P. laos sp. nov., P. inflatus sp. nov., P. pakawini sp. nov., P. demiror sp. nov., P. jaegeri sp. nov., P.vivax sp. nov., P. obtectus sp. nov., P. fuscai sp. nov., P. clavis sp. nov., P. hartmanni sp. nov., P. zygon sp. nov., P. tauri-cornis sp. nov., P. crepido sp. nov. and P. schwendingeri sp. nov. Two species are removed from synonymy with P. sin-gaporensis Thorell, 1894: P. annulatus Kulczyński 1908 (stat. nov.) and P. libelti Kulczyński 1908 (stat. nov.). One juniorsynonym of P. tingpingensis Yin, Wang & Zhang, 1985 is recognised: P. xinping Chen, Zhang, Song & Kim, 2002 (syn.nov.). New records are reported: P. libelti from Thailand, Malaysia & Brunei; P. ancoralis Bayer & Jäger, 2010 from Thai-land; P. himalayanus Simon, 1906 from Bhutan; P. ghecuanus Thorell, 1897 from Laos. Pre-epigynes/pre-vulvae of 20Psechrus species are examined and illustrated. In these species they apparently exhibit consistent and species-specificcharacters. However, since in several species only one subadult female was available for examination and in 57% of thePsechrus species even none at all, the characters of the pre-epigyne/pre-vulva are not included in the Psechrus identifica-tion key introduced herein. Additional information on the biology of Psechrus—for which the trivial name “lace-sheetweavers” is introduced herein—is provided.

We investigated the relative phylogenetic position of the spider genera Psechrus Thorell, 1878 and Fecenia Simon, 1887 comprising the family Psechridae Simon, 1890 within the order Araneae (plus 50 outgroup taxa) using molecular data of the nuclear 28S rRNA gene and the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene. We further revised the placement of genera formerly hypothesised in Psechridae and tested morphological species and species-group hypotheses recently proposed for Psechrus and Fecenia. Our results showed both genera as monophyletic and included within Lycosoidea but indicated no support for a monophyletic family Psechridae. Support for relationships to particular genera of other families (Lycosidae, Pisauridae) was found to be equally low. Previous removal of the genera Stiphidion Simon, 1902, Poaka Forster & Wilton, 1973, Tengella Dahl, 1901 (Metafecenia F. O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1902) and Themacrys Simon, 1906 from Psechridae is confirmed by recovering most of them outside Lycosoidea. For Tengella (part of Lycosoidea) a close relation to Psechridae is not supported. In the species-rich genus Psechrus, morphologically predefined species groups were generally recovered as monophyletic. COI information was applied to test the morphological species hypotheses for 28 Psechridae species, most of them represented by more than one specimen. Our analyses corroborated all proposed species and indicated COI as reliable for barcoding both Psechrus and Fecenia. COI enabled assignment of a juvenile specimen to Fecenia protensa, establishing the first species record for Brunei.

The present paper provides a taxonomic revision of the genus Fecenia with emphasis on the characteristics of the pre-epigynes which are integrated for the first time into an identification key. As a result, one species is revalidated, Fecenia protensa Thorell, 1891, stat. n., and two new junior synonyms for Fecenia protensa are recognised: Fecenia sumatrana Kulczyński, 1908, syn. n. and Fecenia nicobarensis (Tikader, 1977), syn. n. New records are reported: Fecenia ochracea (Doleschall, 1859)from Malaysian Borneo, Fecenia macilenta (Simon, 1885) from Sumatra, Indonesia, Fecenia protensa from Thailand and Malaysia, Fecenia travancoria Pocock, 1899 from Sri Lanka and Thailand, and Fecenia cylindrata Thorell, 1895 from Thailand and Laos. Additional information on the biology of Fecenia is provided and the validity of characters for identifying Fecenia species is discussed.

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