Pholcid spiders of the Pholcus phungiformes species-group (Araneae, Pholcidae) from Liaoning Province, China: an overview, with description of a new species

Abstract

Species of the Pholcus phungiformes group exhibit high diversity in Liaoning Province of northeastern China. This paper summarizes the current knowledge on this species-group from this area. A checklist of 22 species recorded from this province is given, accompanied with a distribution map of the species. Pholcus xiuyan Zhao, Zheng & Yao, sp. nov. (♂♀) is described as new to science, and P. yuhuangshan Yao & Li, 2021 is reported from Liaoning for the first time.

A new species of the Pholcus phungiformes species group (Araneae, Pholcidae) from Liaoning, China, with identification keys to four closely related species

“… Pholcus Walckenaer, 1805 is the most diverse genus in the family, with 384 described species mainly distributed in the Afrotropical, Palaearctic, Indo-Malayan, and Australasian regions ( Huber 2011 ; Yao and Li 2012 ; WSC 2024 ). The genus was split to 21 species groups by Huber (2011) and Huber et al (2018) , of which the phungiformes group is the most speciose and contains 108 species ( Huber 2011 ; Wang et al 2020 ; Yao et al 2021 ; Lu et al 2022 ; Zhao et al 2023a , 2023b ). Almost all species of this group are recorded from four mountain ranges: the Lüliang Mountains (9 spp.)…”

A survey of Pholcus spiders (Araneae, Pholcidae) from the Qinling Mountains of central China, with descriptions of seven new species

“…Recently, a series of surveys of Pholcus have been carried out in northern China and a large number of new species have been reported. For instance, a wide-ranging expedition to the Changbai Mountains in 2020 recorded 27 species of Pholcus, including 13 new species (Lu et al 2021;Yao et al 2021;Zhao et al 2023a). Another investigation in the Yanshan-Taihang Mountains in 2021 recorded 36 Pholcus species, of which 14 species were new to science (Lu et al 2022a, b).…”

Five new species of the Pholcus phungiformes species group (Araneae, Pholcidae) from South Korea

“…The P. phungiformes species group can be distinguished from other species groups by the following combination of characters: male chelicerae usually with frontal apophyses, male palpal tibia with prolatero-ventral modification, procursus usually with dorsal spines, the male genital bulb without appendix or with pseudo-appendix arising from uncus, and a sclerotized epigynum with knob ( Huber 2011 ; Yao et al 2021 ). Taxonomic research on this group has recently been active in China and South Korea and 110 species have been recorded in the region to date; 70 from China, 39 from South Korea ( P. extumidus Paik, 1978, is found in both South Korea and Japan), and one species from Russia ( Lee et al 2021a , b ; Yao et al 2021 ; Lu et al 2022 ; Jang et al 2023 ; Zhao et al 2023a , b ). Five new Pholcus spiders belonging to the P. phungiformes species group were collected during surveys on the spider fauna in mountainous, hilly, and coastal mixed forests during 2019–2022 (Fig.…”