Lathys Simon, 1884

Marusik, Yuri M., Esyunin, Sergei L. & Tuneva, Tatyana K., 2015, A survey of Palaearctic Dictynidae (Araneae). 1. Taxonomic notes on Dictynomorpha Spassky, 1939, Brigittea Lehtinen, 1967 and Lathys Simon, 1884, Zootaxa 3925 (1), pp. 129-144 : 138

Lathys Simon, 1884

Lathys Simon 1884: 321 .

Analtella Denis 1947: 145 , type A. brevitarsis Denis, 1947 .

Auximus Simon 1892: 239 , type Amaurobius dentichelis Simon, 1883 . Lathys: Chamberlin & Gertsch 1958: 8 , 25; Lehtinen 1967: 242 –243, 352; Marusik et al. 2009: 22.

Type species: Ciniflo humilis Blackwall, 1855 .

Comments. The genus currently includes 44 extant species ( Platnick 2014) distributed exclusively in the Holarctic. The single species described outside the Holarctic, L. mussooriensis Biswas & Roy, 2008 from India, is misplaced in the family (see below). Twelve species are known only from females and five only from males;19 names are listed as junior synonyms ( Platnick 2014). Of 43 species, 32 are known from the Palaearctic; half of them are restricted to the Eastern Palaearctic and another half to the Western Palaearctic.

Early publications paid special attention to the structure of the lower (twisted) tip of the conductor for species level identification. Based on this character, seven species described from the Palaearctic were synonymized with L. stigmatisata (Menge, 1869) . While studying the conformation of the male palp in the L. stigmatisata -group, Marusik et al. (2006) it was found that palp is much more complicated than it previously thought; its tibia has three, not two apophyses, the upper arm of the conductor and embolus is long, and sibling species can be separated on the basis of the position of the base of embolus, as well as the shape and position of the loops of seminal ducts. The twisted tip of the conductor was found to be of small taxonomic value and its size corresponds to the size of the epigynal fovea. This study revealed that several species were erroneously synonymized with L. stigmatisata (for instance, L. spasskyi ) but a formal revalidation was not done. Here we provide additional evidence about the validity of the Central Asian species.