Cryptic diversity within three South American whip spider species (Arachnida, Amblypygi)

Abstract

Cryptic diversity (CD), the presence of highly divergent phylogenetic lineages within closed morphological species, has been documented for many taxa. Great arachnid orders such as Araneae or Scorpiones are well studied and many cases of CD have been described therein; to date, however, related research on smaller arachnid orders, such as whip spiders (Amblypygi), remains lacking. In the current study, we investigated CD based on cytochrome oxidase 1 ( COI ) in three nominal species of the genus Heterophrynus ( H. alces , H. batesii , and H. longicornis ), represented by 65 specimens. The sequences were compared using three different methods. All three species showed geographically structured CD. Thus, given its existence in this genus, it is important that CD and its spatial distribution be considered in future studies and possible conservation projects.

Volcanism and palaeoclimate change drive diversification of the world's largest whip spider (Amblypygi)

“…Eight morphologically and genetically delimited species of the tarantula genus Brachypelma Simon, 1891 occur across the distribution of Acanthophrynus (Mendoza & Francke, 2020). Recent genetic studies on phrynid whip spiders of the genera Heterophrynus and Phrynus suggested large pairwise genetic distances may reflect previously unrecognized cryptic diversity (Esposito et al, 2015; Reveillion et al, 2020). Pairwise genetic distances within Acanthophrynus resemble intra‐ and interspecific distances among morphologically diagnosable whip spider species of other genera, suggesting the monotypic Acanthophrynus is a complex of three or four cryptic species.…”

“…Pairwise genetic distances in the 12S, 16S and COI loci of Acanthophrynus were compared to intra‐ and interspecific distances among morphologically distinct but closely related whip spider species of three genera, using data from GenBank: five species of Damon C.L. Koch, 1850 from Prendini et al (2005); three species of Heterophrynus Pocock, 1894 from Reveillion et al (2020); and four species of Paraphrynus Moreno, 1940 from Seiter et al (2020). Sequences were aligned with the Acanthophrynus sequences using online mafft version 7 (Katoh et al, 2019) with the iterative refinement method G‐INS‐I and a 200PAM/κ = 2 parameter.…”

“…Their vagility is further constrained by an ecological requirement for humidity, which restricts them to forests, caves or the vicinity of permanent water sources in arid areas (Weygoldt, 2000). Although phylogeographical studies of whip spiders remain scarce, the few published to date confirm that their diversity is underestimated and informative for understanding diversification in the tropics (Chapin et al, 2018; Esposito et al, 2015; Prendini et al, 2005; Reveillion et al, 2020).…”

Variations in the carapace shape of whip spiders (Arachnida: Amblypygi)

“…While the first species, Phalangium reniforme , was described in 1758 by Carl von Linné, few species were described before the end of the 19th century. However, the interest in this group continues to grow, as the number of species described and the studies published on whip spider systematic and morphometry increase each year (Chapin & Hebets, 2016; Harvey, 2003; Maquart et al, 2018; McArthur et al, 2018; Miranda & Reboleira, 2019; Réveillion & Maquart, 2018; Reveillion et al, 2020; Weygoldt, 2000; Zhu et al, 2021).…”

Insights into the Karyotype Evolution of Charinidae, the Early-Diverging Clade of Whip Spiders (Arachnida: Amblypygi)

“…Whip spiders seem to display rather low diversity, though their fossil records date back to the Upper Carboniferous [1,4]. Recent studies, however, suggest that the amblypygid diversity might be considerably larger, but its cryptic nature hampers its thorough characterization by most of the current approaches [5][6][7]. Amblypygids are classified into two suborders, namely the Paleoamblypygi, represented by the monotypic genus Paracharon, and the Euamblypygi, which includes four families (Charinidae, Charontidae, Phrynidae, and Phrynichidae) encompassing about 220 extant species placed in 17 genera [3,[8][9][10][11][12].…”