Tissahamia Huber

Huber, Bernhard A., Eberle, Jonas & Dimitrov, Dimitar, 2018, The phylogeny of pholcid spiders: a critical evaluation of relationships suggested by molecular data (Araneae, Pholcidae), ZooKeys 789, pp. 51-101 : 84

Tissahamia Huber gen. n.

Pholcus ethagala group: Huber 2011a: 171.

Type species.

Pholcus ethagala Huber, 2011.

Etymology.

Named for Wanniyalaeto chief Uru Warige Tissahami (1903-1996), who struggled (without success) against the government to keep the land of his ancestors. Gender feminine.

Diagnosis

(adapted from Huber 2011a). Distinguished from other genera in Pholcinae by the combination of the following characters: elongate abdomen that is slightly pointed or elevated dorso-posteriorly, six eyes, eye triads on stalks, male chelicerae with proximal apophyses in frontal position, without distal apophyses ( Huber 2011a: figs. 795, 811, 816), male palpal trochanter with short retrolateral and longer ventral apophyses, palpal tarsus with dorsal elongation (except T. phui ), bulb with large and complex appendix and weakly sclerotized embolus, without uncus, procursus highly complex, epigynum weakly sclerotized, with ‘knob’.

Distribution.

Sri Lanka, Malay Peninsula, and Sumatra ( Huber 2011a: fig. 718 - note that Pholcus schwendingeri in that figure is now in Kintaqa ; Huber et al. 2016a: fig. 1).

Composition.

The Pholcus ethagala group originally included seven species. Of these, Pholcus schwendingeri is now in Kintaqa (see below); five species have been added recently, resulting in eleven species, all newly transferred from Pholcus : T. ethagala (Huber, 2011); T. kottawagamaensis (Yao & Li, 2016); T. maturata (Huber, 2011). Assigned tentatively: T. barisan (Huber, 2016); T. bukittimah (Huber, 2016); T. gombak (Huber, 2011); T. ledang (Huber, 2011); T. phui (Huber, 2011); T. tanahrata (Huber, 2016); T. uludong (Huber, 2016); T. vescula (Simon, 1901).