Combining genomic, phenotypic and Sanger sequencing data to elucidate the phylogeny of the two-clawed spiders (Dionycha)

Advances in the reconstruction of the Spider Tree of Life: a roadmap for spider systematics and comparative studies

“…In addition to these synapomorphies, another characteristic feature of spiders includes the occurrence of two types of respiratory systems -book lungs and tracheae, with most spiders having both of these types. It is hypothesized that the book lungs are the symplesiomorphic condition because they are found in the three orders of Tetrapulmonata and earliest-diverging clades of spiders, Mesothelae and Mygalomorphae and some early-diverging Araneomorphae, for example, Gradungulidae and Hypochilidae (less than 35 of about 50,500 species of araneomorph spiders) (Ramírez, 2000;Schmitz, 2013;Ramírez et al, 2021). They have two pairs of book lungs whereas most "modern" spiders (Araenomorphae) have either a combination of one pair of book lungs and tracheae (example, water spider Argyroneta aquatica (Clerck, 1757)) or exclusively only tracheae (for example, Symphytognathidae).…”

“…Wheeler et al (2017) published a densely sampled phylogeny using six genetic markers acquired via Sanger sequencing, constrained using the transcriptomes-based phylogeny of Garrison et al, (2016), which included 932 taxa (115 out of 116 families at the time). A few studies have used genomic scale data to reconstruct the evolutionary history of a specific group of spiders, such as, Mygalomorphae Opatova et al, 2020); Leptonetidae (Ledford et al, 2021), Synspermiata (Ramírez et al, 2021), Austrochiloidea , Palpimanoidea (Wood et al, 2018), Araneoidea (Fernández et al, 2018;Kallal et al, 2020;Kulkarni et al, 2020 or Salticidae (Maddison et al, 2020). The hypotheses about relationships among different lineages of spiders have been converging to some degree, however some recalcitrant nodes remain when reconstructed using different classes of data .…”

A new species of Plator Simon, 1880 from Pakistan, with a supplementary description of P. pandeae Tikader, 1969 (Araneae: Trochanteriidae)

“…Trochanteriidae Karsch, 1879 is a small family of spiders, currently comprising 50 extant species in six genera, primarily distributed in the pantropical regions, as well as 30 fossil species in six extinct genera from Baltic, Dominican, Rovno and Chiapas ambers (Dunlop et al, 2020;World Spider Catalog, 2022;Azevedo et al, 2022). Trochanteriids have a strongly fl attened body, relatively elongated trochanters and noticeably laterigrade legs, and are typically found under bark or stones (Jocqué & Dippenaar-Schoeman, 2006).…”

Trophic specialization of a newly described spider ant symbiont, Myrmecicultor chihuahuensis (Araneae: Myrmecicultoridae)

“…This small spider has only been found in association with ant nests, specifically nests of Novomessor albisetosus (Mayr, 1886) (Myrmicinae), N. cockerelli (André, 1893), and Pogonomyrmex rugosus Emery, 1895 (Myrmicinae). Ramírez et al (2019) and Azevedo et al (2021) carried out multi-locus phylogenetic analyses suggesting that M. chihuahuensis does not belong to any known spider family. Therefore, Ramírez et al (2019) placed this species in its own family, the Myrmecicultoridae.…”