Dysdera Latreille, 1804

Zamani, Alireza, Marusik, Yuri M. & Szűts, Tamas, 2023, A survey of the spider genus Dysdera Latreille, 1804 (Araneae, Dysderidae) in Iran, with fourteen new species and notes on two fossil genera, ZooKeys 1146, pp. 43-86 : 43

Genus Dysdera Latreille, 1804

Type species.

Aranea erythrina Walckenaer, 1802, from France.

Diagnosis.

Dysdera can be diagnosed from other dysderine genera by the interdistance of PLE and PME less than half of their diameter, three or four cheliceral teeth in one series, punctiform (= highly reduced) fovea, and femur I at least twice as long as coxa I. The bulb is cylindrical, bearing a broad posterior apophysis and a distal psembolus. The endogyne is composed by an anterior diverticulum bearing a dorsal arch and a ventral arch, a transverse receptacle and a posterior diverticulum bearing a transverse bar ( Deeleman-Reinhold and Deeleman 1988; Le Peru 2011).

Comments.

Deeleman-Reinhold and Deeleman (1988) proposed nine species groups within Dysdera : Dysdera aculeata , Dysdera asiatica , Dysdera crocata , Dysdera erythrina , Dysdera festai , Dysdera lata , Dysdera longirostris , Dysdera ninnii , and Dysdera punctata . Charitonov (1956) and Fomichev and Marusik (2021) proposed an additional cylindrica group composed of Central Asian species considered within Dysdera asiatica group by Deeleman-Reinhold and Deeleman (1988), mostly based on their disjunct distribution. Here, we tentatively treat these species within Dysdera aculeata group, primarily on the basis of the conformation of male palp and considering that the discovery of similar species in Iran fills this distributional gap. Furthermore, characters based on spination used by Deeleman-Reinhold and Deeleman (1988) in definition of the species groups are not followed here as they appear to be variable; assignment of the species treated here to their respective groups is primarily based on the conformation of male palp.

Composition.

More than 310 species ( WSC 2022).

Dysdera aculeata species group

Diagnosis. This group can be diagnosed by a combination of the following characters: the carapace elongated and hexagonal, and the psembolus longer than the tegulum, with an anterior (= median) crest and an acuminate apex ( Deeleman-Reinhold and Deeleman 1988).

Comments. Currently, there is no clear distinction between the Dysdera aculeata and Dysdera asiatica groups, both of which are in serious need of a thorough revision (see Dimitrov 2021).