Geography-related sub-generic diversity within the Mediterranean trapdoor spider genusNemesia(Araneae, Mygalomorphae, Nemesiidae)

Abstract

Three different male and female super-specific types are distinguished according to variations in the morphology of the bulb and spermathecae within the genus Nemesia Audouin, 1826. Plotting the distributions of these sexual types on a map of the Mediterranean indicates the existence of geography-related sub-generic diversity in which the Nemesia fauna of the eastern Mediterranean differs markedly from that of the western Mediterranean. While the eastern Mediterranean Nemesia fauna is highly homogeneous, the fauna of the western Mediterranean is very diverse. The eastern and western Nemesia faunae appear to overlap in the central Mediterranean. Efforts to relate the specific bulb types to the particular types of spermathecae described here were only partly successful.

Total‐evidence analysis of an undescribed fauna: resolving the evolution and classification of Australia’s golden trapdoor spiders (Idiopidae: Arbanitinae: Euoplini)

“…Raven, 1978; Mirza and Mondal, 2018), shape of the spermathecae (e.g. Bond and Platnick, 2007; Decae, 2012; Siliwal et al, 2015), and leg I spination and scopulation (e.g. Rix et al, 2017a; Godwin et al, 2018; RíoRíos‐Tamayo and Goloboff, 2018).…”

Rafting spiders or drifting islands? Origins and diversification of the endemic trap‐door spiders from the Balearic Islands, Western Mediterranean

“…The polyphyletic nature of the Balearic nemesiid assemblage recovered in this study was previously advanced in the original descriptions of the endemic species (Decae, ). Based on the spermathecae morphology, all Balearic species were of the ‘western type’ (E‐ and F‐types sensu Decae, ), except for N. seldeni and the new Minorcan species, which would be placed with the D‐type, a group much more frequent in the eastern Mediterranean. Our results supported the former suggestion that N. seldeni and the new Minorcan species belonged to a clade that also included species from Italy, Tunisia, Crete and the Thyrrenian Islands.…”

“…However, different degrees of spinneret reduction were also described in Nemesia , which in combination with the low support identified may indicate the paraphyletic status of the genus. Additionally, the geographically structured differentiation of the genitalia observed within Nemesia was also suggestive of independent evolutionary lineages that might deserve generic status (Decae, ).…”

The Nemesia trapdoor spider fauna of the Maltese archipelago, with the description of two new species (Araneae, Mygalomorphae, Nemesiidae)

“…Nemesia maltensis groups out with a species-complex that is common in the central and eastern Mediterranean Basin (Decae 2012). In this species-complex the palpal organ of males has striae (fine ribs) on the proximal embolus (Figs 59-62), and females have tube shaped, tripartite spermathecae in which the median part is folded and twisted (Fig.…”