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12 September 2014 On the New World spiders previously misplaced in Leptopholcus: molecular and morphological analyses and descriptions of four new species (Araneae : Pholcidae)
Bernhard A. Huber, Leonardo S. Carvalho, Suresh P. Benjamin
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Abstract

The generic placement of New World pholcids assigned to the genus Leptopholcus Simon, 1893 has long been questioned and recent molecular data have shown that Caribbean (Hispaniolan) representatives are more closely related to the Old World genus Micropholcus Deeleman-Reinhold & Prinsen, 1987 than to ‘true’ African Leptopholcus (Dimitrov, Astrin and Huber 2013, Cladistics 29: 132–146). Here we provide new molecular (16S, 18S, 28S, COI, H3, WNT1) and morphological data about Caribbean (Cuban, Puerto Rican) and South American (Brazilian) representatives, supporting the sister-group relationship with Micropholcus and suggesting a monophyletic New World clade that in turn consists of a Caribbean and a South American clade. The ten New World species previously assigned to Leptopholcus are thus transferred to Micropholcus for which an emended diagnosis is provided: M. baoruco (Huber, 2006), comb. nov.; M. brazlandia (Huber, Pérez & Baptista, 2005), comb. nov.; M. dalei (Petrunkevitch, 1929), comb. nov.; M. delicatulus (Franganillo, 1930), comb. nov.; M. evaluna (Huber, Pérez & Baptista, 2005), comb. nov.; M. hispaniola (Huber, 2000), comb. nov.; M. jamaica (Huber, 2000), comb. nov.; M. kiskeya (Huber & Wunderlich, 2006), comb. nov.; M. pataxo (Huber, Pérez & Baptista, 2005), comb. nov.; M. toma (Huber, 2006), comb. nov. Four Brazilian species are newly described: M. piaui, sp. nov.; M. piracuruca, sp. nov.; M. crato, sp. nov.; M. ubajara, sp. nov. Natural history data are provided for M. piaui and M. ubajara.

© CSIRO 2014
Bernhard A. Huber, Leonardo S. Carvalho, and Suresh P. Benjamin "On the New World spiders previously misplaced in Leptopholcus: molecular and morphological analyses and descriptions of four new species (Araneae : Pholcidae)," Invertebrate Systematics 28(4), 432-450, (12 September 2014). https://doi.org/10.1071/IS13050
Received: 15 October 2013; Accepted: 1 January 2014; Published: 12 September 2014
KEYWORDS
Brazil
Micropholcus
molecular phylogeny
taxonomy
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