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Systematics, phylogeny and biogeography
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Revision of coelotine spiders from Nepal (Araneae : Amaurobiidae)

Xin-Ping Wang A C and Jochen Martens B
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A College of Life Sciences, Hebei University, Baoding, Hebei 071002, China.

B Institut of Zoology, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Department of Systematic Zoology, Müllerweg 6, D-55099 Mainz, Germany.

C Corresponding author. Emails: wang@amaurobiidae.com, xinping_wang@yahoo.com

Invertebrate Systematics 23(5) 452-505 https://doi.org/10.1071/IS09009
Submitted: 14 February 2009  Accepted: 10 October 2009   Published: 16 December 2009

Abstract

Coelotine spiders from Nepal are studied based on collections from the Himalaya Expeditions of J. Martens carried out in the years 1969, 1970, 1973, 1980, 1983, 1988 and 1995. In total, 38 Nepalese species of the genus Draconarius Ovtchinnikov, 1999 are described, including 35 new species. These are: D. beloniforis, sp. nov. (♂), D. bifarius, sp. nov. (♂), D. brevikarenos, sp. nov. (♀), D. capitellus, sp. nov. (♀), D. communis, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. condocephalus, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. confusus, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. contiguus, sp. nov. (♀), D. cylindratus, sp. nov. (♀), D. dapaensis, sp. nov. (♂), D. distinctus, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. dorsicephalus, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. gorkhaensis, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. gurkha (Brignoli, 1976) (♀), D. latiforus, sp. nov. (♀), D. meganiger, sp. nov. (♀), D. microcoelotes, sp. nov. (♀), D. panchtharensis, sp. nov. (♀), D. paraepisomos, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. phulchokiensis, sp. nov. (♀), D. pseudogurkha, sp. nov. (♀), D. pseudomeganiger, sp. nov. (♀), D. sacculus, sp. nov. (♀), D. schawalleri, sp. nov. (♂), D. semicirculus, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. seorsus, sp. nov. (♀), D. simplicifolis, sp. nov. (♀), D. spinosus, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. subconfusus, sp. nov. (♀), D. subepisomos, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. subrotundus, sp. nov. (♀), D. taplejungensis, sp. nov. (♀), D. testudinatus, sp. nov. (♀), D. tinjuraensis, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. tritos, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. volutobursarius, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. wuermlii (Brignoli, 1978) (♀) and D. yadongensis (Hu & Li, 1987) (♂♀). The male is described for the first time for D. yadongensis. The distribution characteristics of Nepalese coelotines are discussed. The phylogenetic relationships of Coelotinae, including Nepalese coelotines and the two recently established coelotine genera, Lineacoelotes Xu, Li & Wang, 2008 and Notiocoelotes Wang, Xu & Li, 2008 from China and South-east Asia, are analysed using the parsimony method. Our research found that coelotines from Nepal are highly diversified and occur in different clades of the tree. The genus Draconarius is not monophyletic. We assigned all the species examined in this study to Draconarius because they are not congeneric with any existing coelotine genus. Their appropriate placement will be further studied in a future phylogenetic analysis using all coelotine species as terminals.


Acknowledgements

We thank GB Edwards (Florida State Collection of Arthropods, Gainesville, Florida), Charles E. Griswold (California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, California), and Norman I. Platnick (American Museum of Natural History, New York) for use of the facilities. In addition to the specimens from the Himalaya Expeditions of J. Martens, deposited in the Senckenberg Museum, Frankfurt/M. (J. Martens and P. Jäger), a few additional specimens were available from the Institute of Zoology, Innsbruck (K. Thaler) and Naturhistorisches Museum Basel (A. Hänggi). J. Martens heartily thanks the Feldbausch Foundation and Wagner Foundation at Fachbereich Biologie, Mainz University, for annually granting travel funds to carry out field studies in Asia. Robert Raven and Barbara Baehr (Queensland Museum, South Brisbane), and two anonymous reviewers provided both taxonomic and language editing to the manuscript. Nikolaj Scharff (Zoological Museum, Copenhagen) provided critical comments to the phylogenetic analysis. We thank our Coelotinae colleagues in China for reading and providing valuable comments on an early version of the manuscript: Shu-qiang Li and Jie Liu (Institute of Zoology, Beijing), Xiang Xu (Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan), Ming-sheng Zhu (Hebei University, Baoding, Hebei), and Zhi-sheng Zhang (South-western University, Chongqing). X. P. Wang particularly thanks C. E. Griswold, N. I. Platnick, and Nikolaj Scharff for discussing the English language in species description.


References


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Results of the Himalaya Expeditions of J. MARTENS, No. 267 – For No. 266 see Genus 20(3): 533–537, 2009 (Wroclaw, Poland). – J. M. sponsored by Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.




Appendix 1.  Map of Nepal, J. Martens routes from 1969 to 1995. For details see Maps 2–5.
A1



Appendix 2.  Map of Nepal in Dhaulagiri and Annapurna region (J. Martens collection trips in 1969, 1970, 1973, 1974 and 1980), showing recorded distribution of 12 coelotine species. Among them, two females (#6) from south side of Dhaulagiri range are similar to D. spinosus, sp. nov., but need to be further confirmed with additional collections from this area.
A2



Appendix 3.  Map of Nepal in Trisuli Valley and eastern Manaslu region (J. Martens collection trips in 1973 and 1983), showing distribution records of 7 coelotine species. Among them, two females from the same vial (#41) are similar to D. paraepisomos, sp. nov. and D. contiguus, sp. nov. separately and another female (#108) is similar to D. confusus, sp. nov., but their species status need to be further confirmed with additional collections from this area.
A3



Appendix 4.  Map of Nepal between Bothe Kosi and Dudh Kosi region, including slopes of Mt. Everest (J. Martens collection trips in 1970, 1973 and 1995), showing distribution records of 7 coelotine species.
A4



Appendix 5.  Map of Nepal in the catchment area of the Tamur (J. Martens collection trips in 1980, 1983 and 1988), showing distribution records of 17 coelotine species. Among them one female (#390) is similar to D. contiguus, sp. nov., but its species status need to be further confirmed with additional collections from this area.
A5