Description and phylogenetic analysis of two new Episinus (Araneae, Theridiidae) species from China

Fengjie Liu; Ingi Agnarsson; Jie Liu; Yang Zhu

doi:10.3897/zookeys.1125.90212

Description and phylogenetic analysis of two new Episinus (Araneae, Theridiidae) species from China

Zookeys. 2022 Oct 19:1125:33-46. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.1125.90212. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Fengjie Liu¹, Ingi Agnarsson^{1

2}, Jie Liu^{1

3}, Yang Zhu^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Hubeiate Key Laboratory of Regional Development and Environmental Response, Faculty of Resources and Environmental Science, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Biocatalysis and Enzyme Engineering, School of Life Sciences, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, Hubei, China.
³ Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Iceland, Sturlugata 7, 102 Reykjavik, Iceland.
⁴ School of Nuclear Technology and Chemistry and Biology, Hubei University of Science and Technology, Xianning 437100, Hubei, China.

Abstract

The spider genus Episinus Walckenaer, 1809 currently contains 66 species worldwide, mostly in warm temperate to tropical areas. This paper describes two new Chinese Episinus species: E.ornithorrhynchus sp. nov. (♂♀) and E.papilionaceous sp. nov. (♀). We add these two new and one known Episinus species to the phylogenetic data matrix of Liu et al. 2016 and reanalyze the data. The new phylogeny recovers the monophyly of Episinus and supports its division into two groups, a finding also supported by morphology.

Keywords: New species; phylogenetic; taxonomy.

Fengjie Liu, Ingi Agnarsson, Jie Liu, Yang Zhu.