Studies in Corinnidae: cladistic analysis of 38 corinnid and liocranid genera, and transfer of Phrurolithinae

Abstract

This paper studies the phylogeny of the spider families Liocranidae and Corinnidae as they have been delimited to date, using an exemplar approach. In the analysis, 40 species belonging to 24 liocranid and 14 corinnid genera are scored for 157 morphological characters. The genera Clubiona (Clubionidae) and Gnaphosa (Gnaphosidae) are used as outgroups. Under implied weighting, a single fittest tree is found. This hypothesis seriously challenges the presently prevailing classification of the former Clubionidae sensu lato. The subfamily Phrurolithinae (Liocranidae) turns out to be the sister group of Trachelinae and is transferred to Corinnidae. In the interest of taxonomic stability, no radical rearrangement of the families constituting Clubionidae sensu lato is proposed, as it is felt that the present results should first be further corroborated by additional, more elaborate analyses on an even larger data set. Jan Bosselaers, ‘Dochterland’, R. novarumlaan 2, B‐2340 Beerse, Belgium. E‐mail: hortipes@dochterland.org Rudy Jocqué, Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale, B‐3080 Tervuren, Belgium. E‐mail: jocque@africamuseum.be

Studies in Liocranidae (Araneae): a new afrotropical genus featuring a synapomorphy for the Cybaeodinae

“…Because cladograms obtained by attributing a posteriori weights to characters based on their relative degrees of homoplasy on a set of heuristic trees explain the data better (Bosselaers & Jocqué 2002;Goloboff et al 2008b), a weighted analysis was also performed. Implied weighting (Goloboff 1993) was preferred for this purpose.…”

“…* T Curved strong hairs frontally on abdomen: (0) absent, (1) present. Many ground spider genera have rows of strong curved hairs frontally on the abdomen (Bosselaers & Jocqué 2002: fig. 2D).…”

The Morphology And Phylogeny Of Dionychan Spiders (Araneae: Araneomorphae)

“…The successive studies of Gnaphosoidea (Platnick, 2000(Platnick, , 2002 centered on the amazing Australian diversity, consolidated the relationships and delimitation of families outlined by Platnick (1990), mostly from the morphology of spinnerets and spigots. The analysis by Bosselaers and Jocqué (2002) produced novel or unexpected groupings, of which one was considered sufficiently well supported to make the transfer of Phrurolithinae to the family Corinnidae, close to Trachelinae; the liocranids were somehow dispersed through the tree, and Castianeirinae did not appear related to corinnids. Several representatives from such analysis were further combined with gnaphosoids and additional trachelines in a recent cladistic analysis (Haddad et al, 2009), also led by Jan Bosselaers.…”

Spiders (Arachnida: Araneae) Of Milbridge, Washington County, Maine

“…For example, Procter (1946, p. 525) listed Phrurotimpus palustris Banks as a member of the Clubionidae. This species has since been designated as a junior synonym of Phrurotimpus alarius (Hentz 1847), and subsequently the genus Phrurotimpus was reassigned fi rst to the Gnaphosidae (Brignoli (1983), then to the Liocranidae (Platnick 1989(Platnick , 1993(Platnick , 1997, and most recently to the Corinnidae (Bosselaers andJocqué 2002, Platnick 2007). Similar revisions were made for other outdated taxa listed by Procter (1946) 2 Coordinates were determined by Garmin™ GPS 38 and Garmin™ GPSmap 60CS hand-held meters, and then plotted using Maptech® Terrain Navigator 2002 and GIS Arcview 3.2 software in WMF format, Region 601, for preparation of Map 1.…”

“…With the recent transfer of Phrurotimpus and Scotinella from the Liocranidae to the Corinnidae (see Bosselaers and Jocqué 2002), the Maine fauna now consists of 4 genera and 14 species; 3 genera and 8 species are represented in the Milbridge fauna. Dondale and Redner (1982) provide identifi cation keys and illustrations for the genera and species found in Maine.…”