Aterigena, a new genus of funnel-web spider, shedding some light on the Tegenaria-Malthonica problem (Araneae: Agelenidae)

Phylogeny and taxonomy of European funnel-web spiders of theTegenaria−Malthonicacomplex (Araneae: Agelenidae) based upon morphological and molecular data

“…Despite this wide interest, the taxonomic and phylogenetic relationships within the Agelenidae are still poorly understood (e.g. Zhang, Zhu & Song, ; Bolzern, Hänggi & Burckhardt, ).…”

“…Based on similarities in genital structures, Wunderlich () regarded the ecribellate Coelotinae more closely related to Amaurobiinae than Agelena and placed it, as a junior synonym of Amaurobiinae, in his Agelenidae s.l . Recent studies suggest that this classification is highly artificial (Bi, Zhou & Song, ; Spagna & Gillespie, ; Bolzern et al ., ) and that the Coelotinae belongs to Agelenidae (Miller et al , ). In addition to the ‘Coelotinae problem’, there is an on‐going discussion about the definition of Agelenidae and whether the Australian genera are closely related to Agelenidae or not (Griswold et al ., , ; Jocqué & Dippenaar‐Schoeman, ; Spagna & Gillespie, ; Miller et al ., ).…”

“…Currently the Agelenidae (including the Coelotinae) comprises 68 genera and 1152 species (Platnick, ). During recent years many taxonomic papers with descriptions of new genera and species of Agelenidae (including Coelotinae) have been published from Asia (Nishikawa & Ono, ; Guseinov, Marusik & Koponen, ; Ovtchinnikov & Inayatullah, ; Tanikawa, ; Xu, Li & Wang, , ; Zhang, Zhu & Wang, ; Zhang et al ., , b; Chami‐Kranon, Likhitrakarn & Dankittipakul, ; Wang & Jäger, , ; Xu & Li, , ; Zhang, Zhu & Song, ; Dankittipakul & Wang, ; Dankittipakul & Zhang, ; Wang, Xu & Li, ; Zhang, Li & Xu, ; Zhang & Zhu, ), Europe (Kovblyuk, ; Barrantes & Eberhard, ; Gasparo, ; Bolzern, Hänggi & Burckhardt, ; Kovblyuk & Ponomarev, ; Deltshev, ; Bolzern, Crespo & Cardoso, ; Bolzern et al ., ; Bolzern & Hervé, ; Bosmans, ), and North America (Ayoub, Riechert & Small, ; Stocks, ).…”

“…() have shown that the tribes as conceived by Lehtinen are only partly monophyletic and that the current generic affiliation of several species is doubtful. This is especially true for Tegenaria (Levy, ; Guseinov et al ., ) and Malthonica (Barrientos & Cardoso, ; Bolzern et al ., ). The problem has been partly solved by Bolzern et al .…”

“…The problem has been partly solved by Bolzern et al . () in erecting the new genus Aterigena comprising species previously assigned to both genera.…”