Metagonia Simon, 1893

Huber, Bernhard A. & Villarreal, Osvaldo, 2020, On Venezuelan pholcid spiders (Araneae, Pholcidae), European Journal of Taxonomy 718, pp. 1-317 : 172

Metagonia Simon, 1893

Notes

Eight species of Metagonia are listed here for Venezuela . They represent only two of the seven species groups proposed in Huber et al. (2018): the delicata group [ M. beni Huber, 2000 ; M. latigo Huber sp. nov.; M. mariguitarensis ( González-Sponga, 1998) ; M. guianesa Huber sp. nov.], with apparent affinities to the Amazonian fauna; and the rica group [ M. conica (Simon, 1893) ; M. juliae González-Sponga, 2010 ; M. triocular (González-Sponga, 2011) ; M. guttata Huber sp. nov.], with apparent affinities to the Central American fauna (and probably the Colombian fauna which is essentially unknown).

Compared to relatively well-studied countries like Mexico (25 described +2 undescribed species available to the first author) and Brazil (18 +21) this is a low number of species, suggesting that the Venezuelan fauna may still be seriously undersampled. However, much of the diversity in Mexico is the result of extensive radiations in caves ( Gertsch 1986), and much of the diversity in Brazil is in three species groups of Metagonia that are restricted to the Atlantic Forest and are not present in Venezuela : the bifida, furcata, and petropolis groups (according to the classification in Huber et al. 2018). Thus, while there are certainly numerous species of Metagonia that remain to be discovered in Venezuela , the diversity may be relatively low indeed.

The remaining two species groups proposed in Huber et al. (2018) (potiguar and taruma groups) might be present in Venezuela but have not yet been found.