Abstract
We revise the Panjange nigrifrons group in Borneo and document an unexpected diversity in western Sarawak forests. Five species occur within 80 km from Kuching, each species being known from its type locality only. Further species occur east until Niah, but the genus seems to be absent from Sabah. We contrast this with another pholcid genus (Aetana Huber, 2005), which is diverse in Sabah and westward until Niah, but does not seem to occur in central and western Sarawak. Five species are newly described: Panjange kapit Huber, sp. nov., Panjange kubah Huber, sp. nov., Panjange niah Huber, sp. nov., Panjange pueh Huber, sp. nov., Panjange seowi Huber, sp. nov.; Panjange tahai (Huber, 2011) comb. nov. is transferred from Pholcus.
Highlights
In tropical forests around the world, pholcid spiders occupy a variety of microhabitats such as leaf litter, spaces among rocks, logs, and tree buttresses, and green leaves among the vegetation (Huber 2000, 2005)
We contrast this with another pholcid genus (Aetana Huber, 2005), which is diverse in Sabah and westward until Niah, but does not seem to occur in central and western Sarawak
The present paper focuses on taxonomy, but is part of a major effort to resolve relationships among Southeast Asian pholcids and to reconstruct their evolutionary histories
Summary
In tropical forests around the world, pholcid spiders occupy a variety of microhabitats such as leaf litter, spaces among rocks, logs, and tree buttresses, and green leaves among the vegetation (Huber 2000, 2005). In Southeast Asia, leaf-dwelling pholcids are diverse, with some genera consisting entirely of leaf-dwellers (e.g., Calapnita Simon, 1892; Leptopholcus Simon, 1893; Panjange Deeleman-Reinhold & Deeleman, 1983) and others including leaf-dwellers and representatives in other microhabitats (e.g., Belisana Thorell, 1898; Pholcus Walckenaer, 1805) (Deeleman-Reinhold 1986a, 1986b; Huber 2005, 2011). In only a few cases, phylogenetic analyses of morphological and molecular data have provided a basis for reconstructing the direction of evolutionary shifts among microhabitats. For Southeast Asian taxa, molecular data have barely been available, and previous efforts at resolving phylogenetic relationships using morphology have often failed to convincingly resolve the relevant nodes (Huber 2011; Huber & Nuñeza 2015)
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