Study On The Systemtics Of The Spider Families Agelenidae And Amaurobiidae From China

The spider families Agelenidae and Amaurobiidae are two important groups in Amaurobioidea. The species of these two families is more than 80 per cent of this superfamily. Amaurobioids is one of the primitive groups of Araneomorphae. The funnel web of them is supposed as an intermediate state from the 'originative tube web' to orb web and linyphiid web and significant on the spider phylogeny. They inhabit on forests, farm fields, bushes, rock crevices, under stones etc. and are important groups of pest enemies. Now there are 38 genera, 488 species of Agelenidae and 71 genera, 643 species of Amaurobiidae from the world and 4 genera, 21 species of Agelenidae and 18 genera, 185 species from Chinese fauna (Platnick, 2006).On the basis of the works of many arachnologists previously, a great deal of specimens collected from China and some type specimens borrowed from other institutions, the Systematics of Chinese agelenid and amaurobiid spiders are studied.In the general account, the review on the natural history, morphological characters and related problems on the phologeny of agelenid and amaurobiid are given. The phylogenetic data for entelegyne spiders published by Griswold et al (2005) are referred. Seven species of Nicodamidae, Titanoecidae, Phyxelididae, Stiphidiidae, Amphinectidae, Desidae and Neolanidae are chosen as outgroups of the phylogenetic analysis in this paper. And 37 species discovered in China, 10 species from other fauna are treated as ingroups. The result suggests: (1) Coelotinae is great closer to Ageleninae than to Amaurobiinae and it should be transferred back to Agelenidae, (2) the cribellate agelenid from New Zealand is far away from the ecribellate agelenids from China and Europe, so the family Agelenidae is thought as a polyphyletic group up to the present, (3) Tegenaria and Tamgrinia and related genera should be elevated to subfamilies' level and the latter should be transferred to Agelenidae from Amaurobiidae due to the closer relationship with Ageleninae. Additionally, our result does not support the conclusion of Ubick (2005) that Zanomys and the other 2 cribellate genera are treated as the sister group of ecribellate coelotines. In the systematic account, 5 subfamilies [Ageleninae, Coelotinae, Tegenadinae, subfam. nov., Tamgriinae subfam, nov. (Agelenidae) and Amaurobiinae (Amaurobiidae)], 30 genera [including 7 new genera: Laminaris gen. nov., Neagelena gen. nov., Terminatus gen. nov. (Ageleninae), Saccoelotes gen. nov. (Coelotinae), Curvata gen. nov., Pseudotamgrinia gen. nov. (Tamgriniinae) and Tibamaurobius gen. nov. (Amaurobiinae)], 265 species (including 64 new species, 2 new records of China and 10 new discoveries of male or female) are reviewed, 1 genus (Ambanus=Alloclubionoides) and 10 species are newly synonymized and 24 species are newly combined. Referred to the species groups of Coelotinae of Wang (2003), we grouped 96 species of 6 genera into 25 groups: 6 of Chinese Alloclubionoides species into 2 groups, 12 of Chinese Asiacoelotes species into 2 groups, 18 of Chinese Coelotes species into 5 groups, 48 of Chinese Draconarius species into 12 groups, 4 Chinese Himalcoelotes species into 2 groups and 8 Chinese Tonsilla species into 2 groups.Additionally in this paper, 2 states of Retrocoxal hymen of Chinese agelenids and amaurobiids are firstly found under the SEM. The collecting data of type specimens of each species (where, when, who and deposited institutions) are definitely given. And 470 figures of 121 species (all new species included), 137 SEM photos of 23 species and the tracheae patterns of 16 species are given.