Taxonomic revision of fossil Psilodercidae and Ochyroceratidae spiders (Araneae: Synspermiata), with a new species of Priscaleclercera from mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber, northern Myanmar

IVAN L. F. MAGALHAES; ANDRÉS OSVALDO PORTA; JÖRG WUNDERLICH; DANIEL PROUD; MARTÍN J. RAMÍREZ; ABEL PÉREZ GONZÁLEZ

CRETACEOUS RESEARCH (PRINT)

ACADEMIC PRESS LTD-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2021

0195-6671

Psilodercidae contains some 200 known extant species of small spiders that live intropical rainforests and caves and is mainly restricted to the Oriental biogeographicrealm. Interestingly, at least ten different fossil species have been described frominclusions in Late Cretaceous Burmese amber. This suggests the family has beendiversifying in the region for ~100 million years. In this paper, we revise the taxonomyof fossil species of this family and the closely related Ochyroceratidae, based on there-examination of type specimens of described species. We find that ten Cretaceousspecies described in the psilodercid genera Priscaleclercera and Aculeatosoma arevalid, and present new illustrations of their type material. The genus Propterpsilodercesapparently does not belong to Psilodercidae, but rather to a family representing a stemlineage within Scytodoidea. Ochyroceratidae is represented in the fossil record by asingle ochyroceratine genus from Miocene Dominican amber, Arachnolithulus. Theoriginal combination of the extant species Leclercera spinata Deeleman-Reinhold,1995 is reinstated by transferring it from Priscaleclercera, leaving this latter genus as astrictly fossil taxon. Finally, we present the description of a hitherto unknown species ofPriscaleclercera from mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber, Priscaleclercera christae sp.nov., bringing the total number of congeners to ten. By studying its morphologicalfeatures, we argue that Priscaleclercera is a crown-group Psilodercidae, closely relatedto the Althepus?Leclercera lineage. The high species diversity of Priscaleclerceraindicates that Psilodercidae was already a diverse component of the Oriental tropicalforests during the Cretaceous.