Classification Of Karst Cave Spiders In Southern China (Arachnidae: Funnelidae)

The southern China is the most spectacular Karst scenery with much Karst caves.Karst of Southern China lies a plenty of unexplored Karst cave fauna.However,very little research has been studied to document the cave fauna,especially the spiders of caves.On the basis of previous studies,a preliminary taxonomic study of cave spiders distributed in the Karst region of Southern China was carried out.We examined and identified nearly 1500 spider specimens from caves in Karst of Southern China that were collected from 2000 to 2018.There are two new genera: Troglocoelotes Z.Zhao& S.Li,2019 and Guilotes Z.Zhao & S.Li,2018 have been founded by using Morphological taxonomy and Phylogenetic analysis.Troglocoelotes including nine species: T.bailongensis Z.Zhao & S.Li,2019(?),T.banmenensis Z.Zhao & S.Li,2019(?),T.liangensis Z.Zhao & S.Li,2019(??),T.nongchiensis Z.Zhao & S.Li,2019(?),T.proximus(Chen,Zhu & Kim,2008)(?),T.qixianensis Z.Zhao & S.Li,2019(??),T.tortus(Chen,Zhu & Kim,2008)(??),T.yosiianus(Nishikawa,1999)(?)and T.yumiganensis Z.Zhao & S.Li,2019(??).Guilotes including four species:G.ludiensis Z.Zhao & S.Li,2018(??),G.qingshitanensis Z.Zhao & S.Li 2018(??),G.xingpingensis Z.Zhao & S.Li,2018(??)and G.yandongensis Z.Zhao &S.Li,2018(?).Four of them from Guizhou Province while others from Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.The paper reported the results of a detailed study of thirteen species from caves with the detailed description of morphological characteristics,eighteen plates including seventy six photos of diagnosis characters for examined spiders,and two maps.In addition to the above,the paper also reported the morphological photos of Coelotinae and alive Troglocoelotes spp.photos,and the simplified phylogenetic tree of coelotine spiders.