Trogloraptoridae Griswold, Audisio & Ledford

Griswold, Charles E., Audisio, Tracy & Ledford, Joel M., 2012, An extraordinary new family of spiders from caves in the Pacific Northwest (Araneae, Trogloraptoridae, new family), ZooKeys 215, pp. 77-102 : 80

Trogloraptoridae Griswold, Audisio & Ledford fam. n.

Types.

Trogloraptor marchingtoni Griswold, Audisio and Ledford, here designated.

Diagnosis.

Ecribellate Haplogynae lacking AME, with ALE and PLE contiguous but PME separated (Figs 9, 11), chelicerae free at base and distally not forming a chela with fang (Figs 9, 10, 21, 24), Emerit’s glands absent from patellae and tibiae (Fig. 37), posterior respiratory system with broad spiracle closer to spinnerets than to epigastric furrow (Figs 12, 83), with paired, 2-branched lateral tracheal tubes and long, separate median entapophyses (Figs 60, 63), ALS basal article crossed by a diagonal membranous area (Fig. 68), and with all leg tarsi subsegmented and raptorial (Figs 13, 14, 29-32, 38, 44).

Synapomorphies.

The extraordinary, subsegmented raptorial leg tarsi are unique among spiders and clearly autapomorphic for the family.