Metagonia spiders of Galápagos: blind cave-dwellers and their epigean relatives (Araneae, Pholcidae)
Bernhard A. Huber
A * , Guanliang Meng A , Andrea E. Acurio B , Jonas J. Astrin A , Diego J. Inclán C D , Matias Izquierdo E and Alejandro Valdez-Mondragón F
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Arachnology Section, Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig, Adenauerallee 127, D-53113 Bonn, Germany.
B Charles Darwin Research Station, Charles Darwin Foundation, Santa Cruz Island, Galápagos, Ecuador.
C Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad, Sección Invertebrados, Quito, Ecuador.
D Facultad de Ciencias Agrícolas, Universidad Central del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador.
E Instituto de Diversidad y Ecología Animal, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Avda Vélez Sarsfield 299, X5000 JJC Córdoba, Argentina.
F Laboratorio de Aracnología, Instituto de Biología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, sede Tlaxcala, San Miguel Contla, 90640 Santa Cruz Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala, México.
Invertebrate Systematics 36(7) 647-678 https://doi.org/10.1071/IS21082
Submitted: 20 December 2021 Accepted: 1 March 2022 Published: 3 August 2022
© 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing.
Abstract
The spider genus Metagonia has been represented on the Galápagos Islands by two blind species inhabiting lava tubes on Isabela and Santa Cruz. Epigean relatives had not been found on Galápagos and were thus thought to be extinct. During a collecting trip in 2019 we found two epigean species and a third blind hypogean species. Here we describe these new species based on males and females, redescribe both previously known species, and add all five species to the recently published molecular phylogeny of Pholcidae, together with more than 30 further congeners from the mainland. Galápagos Metagonia is recovered as a monophyletic group within the South American–Caribbean M. potiguar group. Galápagos Metagonia is divided into an epigean clade and a hypogean clade. Each species is restricted to an individual island (Isabela or Santa Cruz; with one possible exception), suggesting that the epigean Metagonia species are native rather than introduced.
ZooBank registration: http://zoobank.org/References/0812B715-8446-4B28-BCE0-6AB504BBEC7E.
Keywords: Ecuador, endemic, island, lava tubes, Metagonia, new species, phylogeny, taxonomy, troglomorphism.
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