Pholcus Walckenaer, 1805

Pholcus Walckenaer, 1805: 80 . Type species: Aranea phalangioides Fuesslin, 1775 .

Pholcus — Simon 1893: 470. Huber 2000: 77. Huber 2001: 108. Zhang & Zhu 2009: 6. Huber 2011: 124. Huber et al. 2018: 78.

Notes. Even though numerous species were recently transferred from Pholcus to new genera (Huber et al. 2018), Pholcus continues to be by far the most species rich genus in Pholcidae (currently 324 species). Except for P. fragillimus Strand, 1907, all Sri Lankan species belong to only one of over 20 currently recognized species groups in Pholcus (cf. Huber 2011, Huber et al. 2018): the ceylonicus group. This species group is restricted to southern India and Sri Lanka, and may represent an ancient faunal element: (1) morphologically, the male genitalia differ dramatically from all other known species of the genus, previously misleading me into creating the new genus Sihala Huber, 2011 for this clade; (2) molecular data (Eberle et al. 2018) have strongly supported a transfer back to Pholcus (formalized in Huber et al. 2018) but the sister group of the ceylonicus group remains unknown.