A phylogenetic analysis of the nursery-web spider family Pisauridae, with emphasis on the genera Architis and Staberius (Araneae: Lycosoidea)

This study presents a general cladistic analysis of pisaurid genera, with emphasis on the Neotropical genera Architis Simon and Staberius Simon. The analysis was based on a matrix with 2 1 terminal taxa: eight species of Architis, Staberius spinipes (Taczanowski), seven exemplars of other pisaurid genera and five outgroup taxa. These terminals were scored for 59 morphological and three behavioural characters. An analysis with all characters equally weighted resulted in two most parsimonious trees, differing only in the position of Architis colombo Santos. In both trees Pisauridae arouse as a monophyletic group, and the exemplars of Architis composed a clade with S. spinipes. Contrary to hypotheses from the literature, Thalassius Simon emerged as sister-group of all remaining pisaurids, not as a close relative of Dolomedes Latreille. The genera Tinus EO.P. -Cambridge and Thaumasia Perry appeared in the trees as the closest relatives of Architis and Staberius Simon. The analysis strongly supported S. spinipes as the sister-group of A. helveola (Simon), indicating that Architis as currently delimited is paraphyletic. Based on these results, Staberius is considered a subjective junior synonym of Architis. Additionally, the genus Mimicosa Petrunkevitch, originally described in Tetragnathidae, is transferred to Pisauridae and considered a junior synonym of Architis. Two species are proposed as junior synonyms of A. spinipes comb.n. Mimicosa spinosa Petrunkevitch and Staberius lemoulti Caporiacco.