Revision of coelotine spiders from Nepal (Araneae:Amaurobiidae)

Abstract

Coelotine spiders from Nepal are studied based on collections from the Himalaya Expeditions of J. Martens carried out in the years 1969, 1970, 1973, 1980, 1983, 1988 and 1995. In total, 38 Nepalese species of the genus Draconarius Ovtchinnikov, 1999 are described, including 35 new species. These are: D. beloniforis, sp. nov. (♂), D. bifarius, sp. nov. (♂), D. brevikarenos, sp. nov. (♀), D. capitellus, sp. nov. (♀), D. communis, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. condocephalus, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. confusus, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. contiguus, sp. nov. (♀), D. cylindratus, sp. nov. (♀), D. dapaensis, sp. nov. (♂), D. distinctus, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. dorsicephalus, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. gorkhaensis, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. gurkha (Brignoli, 1976) (♀), D. latiforus, sp. nov. (♀), D. meganiger, sp. nov. (♀), D. microcoelotes, sp. nov. (♀), D. panchtharensis, sp. nov. (♀), D. paraepisomos, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. phulchokiensis, sp. nov. (♀), D. pseudogurkha, sp. nov. (♀), D. pseudomeganiger, sp. nov. (♀), D. sacculus, sp. nov. (♀), D. schawalleri, sp. nov. (♂), D. semicirculus, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. seorsus, sp. nov. (♀), D. simplicifolis, sp. nov. (♀), D. spinosus, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. subconfusus, sp. nov. (♀), D. subepisomos, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. subrotundus, sp. nov. (♀), D. taplejungensis, sp. nov. (♀), D. testudinatus, sp. nov. (♀), D. tinjuraensis, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. tritos, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. volutobursarius, sp. nov. (♂♀), D. wuermlii (Brignoli, 1978) (♀) and D. yadongensis (Hu & Li, 1987) (♂♀). The male is described for the first time for D. yadongensis. The distribution characteristics of Nepalese coelotines are discussed. The phylogenetic relationships of Coelotinae, including Nepalese coelotines and the two recently established coelotine genera, Lineacoelotes Xu, Li & Wang, 2008 and Notiocoelotes Wang, Xu & Li, 2008 from China and South-east Asia, are analysed using the parsimony method. Our research found that coelotines from Nepal are highly diversified and occur in different clades of the tree. The genus Draconarius is not monophyletic. We assigned all the species examined in this study to Draconarius because they are not congeneric with any existing coelotine genus. Their appropriate placement will be further studied in a future phylogenetic analysis using all coelotine species as terminals.