Abstract
The assassin spiders of the family Archaeidae from tropical north-eastern Queensland are revised, with eight new species described from rainforest habitats of the Wet Tropics bioregion and Mackay-Whitsundays Hinterland: Austrarchaea griswoldi sp. n., Austrarchaea hoskini sp. n., Austrarchaea karenae sp. n., Austrarchaea tealei sp. n., Austrarchaea thompsoni sp. n., Austrarchaea wallacei sp. n., Austrarchaea westi sp. n. and Austrarchaea woodae sp. n. Specimens of the only previously described species, Austrarchaea daviesae Forster & Platnick, 1984, are redescribed from the southern Atherton Tableland. The rainforests of tropical eastern Queensland are found to be a potential hotspot of archaeid diversity and endemism, with the region likely to be home to numerous additional short-range endemic taxa. A key to species complements the taxonomy, with maps, natural history information and conservation assessments provided for all species.
Highlights
Few families of Australian spiders are as distinctive or as enigmatic as the ‘assassin spiders’ of the family Archaeidae, renowned for their unique cephalic morphology, strange araneophagic biology, great phylogenetic antiquity and relictual biogeography across the Southern Hemisphere
The Australian Wet Tropics bioregion, situated in north-eastern Queensland between Cooktown and Townsville (Figs 16–23, 25), is a World Heritage area renowned for its rich rainforest biota and very high levels of local endemism
Much has been written about the biogeography of the region, and numerous seminal contributions over several decades have resulted in the Wet Tropics becoming a model landscape for understanding processes of rainforest biogeography, speciation and diversification, in both plant and animal taxa (e.g. Williams et al 1996, Schneider et al 1998, Moritz et al 2000, Crisp et al 2001, Yeates et al 2002)
Summary
Archaeidae)... Australian Assassins, Part III:A review of the Assassin Spiders (Araneae,Archaeidae) of tropical north-eastern Queensland † urn:lsid:zoobank.org:author:B7D4764D-B9C9-4496-A2DE-C4D16561C3B3 ‡ urn:lsid:zoobank.org:author:FF5EBAF3-86E8-4B99-BE2E-A61E44AAEC2C Academic editor: Jeremy Miller | Received 10 July 2012 | Accepted 20 August 2012 | Published 30 August 2012 urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:512D9577-292A-4142-AF43-A85B259B2E14 Citation: Rix MG, Harvey MS (2012) Australian Assassins, Part III: A review of the Assassin Spiders (Araneae, Archaeidae) of tropical north-eastern Queensland. ZooKeys 218: 1–50. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.218.3662
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