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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Contents Vol 23(3)

Australian pirates: systematics and phylogeny of the Australasian pirate spiders (Araneae : Mimetidae), with a description of the Western Australian fauna

Danilo Harms A C D and Mark S. Harvey B C
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Systematik und Evolution der Tiere, Fakultät für Biologie, Chemie und Pharmazie, Freie Universität Berlin, Königin-Luise-Straße 1–3, 14195 Berlin, Germany.

B Department of Terrestrial Zoology, Western Australian Museum, Locked Bag 49, Welshpool D.C., WA 6986, Australia and Division of Invertebrate Zoology, American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 49th Street, New York, NY 10024-5192, USA and California Academy of Sciences, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA 94103-3009, USA.

C School of Animal Biology, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.

D Corresponding author. Email: danilo.harms@museum.wa.gov.au

Invertebrate Systematics 23(3) 231-280 https://doi.org/10.1071/IS08015
Submitted: 3 April 2008  Accepted: 15 April 2009   Published: 21 July 2009

Abstract

Pirate spiders (Mimetidae) are well known for their specialised feeding ecology. They are vagrant araneophagic predators, enter the webs of their prey spiders and exhibit patterns of aggressive mimicry to overcome the web owner. The mimetid fauna of Australia and New Zealand currently consists of 26 species in the following three genera: Australomimetus Heimer, 1986 (18 species), Mimetus Hentz, 1832 (six species), and Ero C.L. Koch, 1836 (two species). The systematic position of the majority of Australasian mimetids was investigated through phylogenetic techniques utilising morphological character systems of 29 exemplar taxa and 87 characters, including the first examination of spinneret structure in species of Australomimetus. The results support an expanded concept for Australomimetus, which, apart from the introduced Ero aphana (Walckenaer, 1802), is found to contain the entire Australian and New Zealand mimetid fauna, also recorded from Asia. The following taxonomic changes are proposed: A. catulli (Heimer, 1989), comb. nov., A. hannemanni (Heimer, 1989), comb. nov., A. japonicus (Uyemura, 1938), comb. nov., A. mendicus (O. P. Cambridge, 1879), comb. nov. and A. sennio (Urquhart, 1891), comb. nov.; Ero luzoniensis Barrion & Litsinger, 1995 is synonymised with Ero aphana, and A. andreae Heimer, 1989 is synonymised with A. daviesianus Heimer, 1986; Mimetus tikaderi Gajbe, 1992 from India is excluded from Mimetidae, and referred to Liocranidae. The Western Australian mimetid fauna is described for the first time and comprises nine species of Australomimetus, including the following five new species: A. diabolicus, sp. nov., A. djuka, sp. nov., A. dunlopi, sp. nov., A. nasoi, sp. nov. and A. stephanieae, sp. nov. Several species-groups of Australomimetus are identified.

Additional keywords: Asia, Australomimetus, Ero, Mimetus, morphology, new species, New Zealand.


Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the following people for the loan of specimens that contributed to this study: Lisa J. Boutin (Queen Victoria Museum, Launceston), Josie Lynn, A. Catindig and K.L. Heong (International Rice Research Institute, Laguna), Paula Cushing (Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Denver), Jason Dunlop and Shahin Nawai (Museum für Naturkunde an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Hirotsugu Ono (National Science Museum, Tokyo), Norman I. Platnick (American Museum of Natural History, New York), Peter Schwendinger (Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, Geneve) and Owen Seeman (Queensland Museum, Brisbane). Julianne Waldock (Western Australian Museum, Perth) is thanked for pre-sorting and collecting important specimens. Stephanie M. Alpers is thanked for guidance in fieldwork and for collecting specimens. The first author wishes to thank Barbara Baehr (Queensland Museum) for accommodation and hospitality during a visit to Brisbane. Thomas Bartolomaeus (Freie Universität Berlin) and Hannelore Hoch (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin) kindly supervised the activities of the first author and provided necessary documentation. Robert Raven (Queensland Museum), Jeremy Miller (National Natuurhistorisch Museum, Leiden) and an anonymous reviewer kindly commented on an early draft of the manuscript. Volker Framenau sacrificed a lot of his working time while introducing the first author to various computer programs and his indispensable support is deeply appreciated. The DAAD (German Academic Exchange Fund; Reference No. D/05/44196) partly financed the present study.


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Appendix 1.  Material utilised for character scoring
Whenever possible, characters for each species were scored directly from the type specimens. Whenever scoring from the types was not possible, e.g. when dissections had to be avoided or when preservation of the types did not allow character coding, additional material for each species was studied. This also proved helpful in generalising observations made directly from the types and was essential in coding characters that deteriorate in alcohol (e.g. colouration). Species labelled with an asterisk (*) were scored from non-type-material as the types proved to be inaccessible or untraceable
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Appendix 2.  Morphological characters and character states used in the phylogenetic analysis
L = length in steps; CI = consistency index; RI = retention index. L = 242, CI = 0.41, RI = 0.62. Parameters: hold = 1000; mult*n = 2000, hold/ = 1000. Some of the characters were shown to be phylogenetically uninformative throughout the analysis (CI = /; RI = /). They were not omitted from the final character matrix when they appeared to be linked to other informative characters, or when they were supposed to be of importance in analysing the intrafamiliar structure of Mimetidae, and are thus informative in a different context
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Appendix 3.  Data matrix for the morphological characters used in the analysis
–, inapplicable data; ?, unknown entries; 0–4 character states (see Appendix 2)
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