Abstract
The genera Holocnemus Simon, 1873 and Crossopriza Simon, 1893 are revised. Together with Stygopholcus Kratochvíl, 1932 (revised recently) and the newly described genus Maghreba gen. nov., they constitute the spotted-leg clade within the northern clade of Smeringopinae. Males and females in this group are characterized by dark marks on the leg femora and tibiae. The native area of the spotted-leg clade ranges from northern Africa and the Mediterranean to Central Asia and NW India. A morphological cladistic analysis suggests that Holocnemus is paraphyletic while Crossopriza is monophyletic, but morphology seems only partly adequate to resolve phylogenetic relationships convincingly. The genus Holocnemus includes four species, all of which are redescribed: H. pluchei (Scopoli, 1763); H. reini (C. Koch, 1873) comb. nov. (transferred from Pholcus); H. caudatus (Dufour, 1820); and H. hispanicus Wiehle, 1933. The genus Maghreba gen. nov. includes eight species from NW Africa: M. aurouxi (Barrientos, 2019) gen. et comb. nov. (transferred from Holocnemus; redescribed, female newly described) and seven newly described species. The genus Crossopriza includes six previously described species (of which five are redescribed), and 18 newly described species. The Madagascan C. nigrescens Millot, 1946 is synonymized with C. lyoni (Blackwall, 1867). All new species are described on the basis of both sexes.
Highlights
The subfamily Smeringopinae Simon, 1893 was originally restricted to Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East up to Central Asia and India
The present paper presents a first comprehensive morphological cladistic analysis of Holocnemus and Crossopriza, but this is included primarily in order to point out characters that appear phylogenetically informative
Maghreba gen. nov. was no longer sister of Stygopholcus but either sister of Holocnemus hispanicus or in a trichotomy with H. hispanicus and Crossopriza
Summary
The subfamily Smeringopinae Simon, 1893 was originally restricted to Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East up to Central Asia and India. Smeringopus pallidus (Blackwall, 1858) and Crossopriza lyoni (Blackwall, 1867) remain largely restricted to tropical and subtropical regions, while Holocnemus pluchei (Scopoli, 1763) has been spreading to more temperate regions (Huber 2012; ). Most representatives of Smeringopinae are medium-sized to large species (mean male carapace width 1.8 mm; mean male tibia 1 length 12.4 mm). Of approximately 650 Pholcidae C.L. Koch, 1850 species with a male carapace width of less than 1 mm, only one is a representative of Smeringopinae (Huber 2021b). The relatively large size, together with the relatively exposed life-style of many species explains that the group includes some of the oldest names in Pholcidae. Only 56 nominal species were ‘known to science’ (Huber 2011b), many of them with names yet unidentifiable using the existing literature
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