Australian Assassins, Part II: A review of the new assassin spider genus Zephyrarchaea (Araneae, Archaeidae) from southern Australia

Michael Rix,Mark Harvey

doi:10.3897/zookeys.191.3070

Abstract

The Assassin Spiders of the family Archaeidae from southern Australia are revised, with a new genus (Zephyrarchaea gen. n.) and nine new species described from temperate, mesic habitats in southern Victoria, South Australia and south-western Western Australia: Zephyrarchaea austini sp. n., Zephyrarchaea barrettae sp. n., Zephyrarchaea grayi sp. n., Zephyrarchaea janineae sp. n., Zephyrarchaea marae sp. n., Zephyrarchaea marki sp. n., Zephyrarchaea melindae sp. n., Zephyrarchaea porchi sp. n. and Zephyrarchaea vichickmani sp. n. Specimens of the type species, Zephyrarchaea mainae (Platnick, 1991), comb. n., are redescribed from the Albany region of Western Australia, along with the holotype female of Zephyrarchaea robinsi (Harvey, 2002) comb. n. from the Stirling Range National Park. The previously described species Archaea hickmani Butler, 1929 from Victoria is here recognised as a nomen dubium. A key to species and multi-locus molecular phylogeny complement the species-level taxonomy, with maps, habitat photos, natural history information and conservation assessments provided for all species.

Highlights

Once considered among the most enigmatic and poorly known of spider families, recent research into the assassin spiders of the family Archaeidae (Fig. 1) has revealed three diverse, highly endemic faunas from southern Africa, Madagascar and Australia, each of considerable evolutionary and conservation significance, and all the focus of modern revisionary systematic studies that have transformed our understanding of archaeid evolution and biogeography
The history of the discovery and documentation of Archaeidae in Australia is one of significant recent, almost exponential progress, with over 85% of currently recognised species described in the past five years, and only four valid taxa described in the eight decades since the first species, Austrarchaea hickmani (Butler, 1929) was first recorded from Victoria
Since the pioneering revisionary work of Forster and Platnick (1984), when only eight adult archaeids had been recorded for the whole of Australia, over 500 specimens of Archaeidae have since been found throughout Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, revealing a diverse Australian fauna, characterised by numerous new species and mostly allopatric, relictual, short-range endemic taxa (Harvey 2002b, Harvey et al 2011, Rix and Harvey 2011, 2012)