Not from “Down Under”: new synonymies and combinations for orb-weaving spiders (Araneae: Araneidae) erroneously reported from Australia

Abstract

The examination of type material of presumed Australian orb-weaving spiders as part of a revision of the Araneidae of this country revealed that a number of species are not from Australia. The Natural History Museum, Vienna (Austria) holds the type material of three species of orb-weaving spiders that were originally described from Australia, however all of the species are undoubtedly of American, most likely southern Brazilian, origin and it is unlikely that they were collected in Australia. We propose the following synonymies and generic transfers: Acacesia tenella (L. Koch, 1871) comb. nov. (= Acacesia cornigera Petrunkevitch, 1925 new synonymy); Alpaida navicula (L. Koch, 1871) comb. nov. (= Alpaida roemeri (Strand, 1908) new synonymy); and Eustala mucronatella (Roewer, 1942) comb. nov. In addition, Novearanea queribunda (Keyserling, 1887) comb. nov. (= Araneus quaesitus (Keyserling, 1887) new synonymy; = Novaranea laevigata (Urquhart, 1891) new synonymy) is a New Zealand orb-weaving spider based on the labels that were found with the type specimens housed at the Natural History Museum, London (England). In the original description no locality data was given for N. queribunda and “Australien” was erroneously listed for A. quaesitus.