Taxonomy and systematics of the Australasian gum nut orb-weaving spider genus Carepalxis (Araneae, Araneidae)

Pedro de S. Castanheira; Dimitar Dimitrov; Renner L. C. Baptista; Nikolaj Scharff; Volker W. Framenau

doi:10.1071/IS25009

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

Previous Contents Vol 39(7)

Taxonomy and systematics of the Australasian gum nut orb-weaving spider genus Carepalxis (Araneae, Araneidae)

Pedro de S. Castanheira

^A ^B ^* , Dimitar Dimitrov

^C , Renner L. C. Baptista ^B , Nikolaj Scharff ^D and Volker W. Framenau ^A ^E ^F

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A Harry Butler Institute, Murdoch University, 90 South Street, Murdoch, WA 6150, Australia.

^B Laboratório de Diversidade de Aracnídeos, Universidade do Brasil–Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Ilha do Fundão, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.

^C Department of Natural History, University Museum of Bergen, University of Bergen, Postboks 7800, NO-5020, Bergen, Norway.

^D Zoology Section, Research and Collections, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

^E Department of Terrestrial Zoology, Western Australian Museum, Locked Bag 49, Welshpool DC, WA 6986, Australia.

^F Zoological Museum Hamburg, Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB), Centre for Taxonomy & Morphology, Martin-Luther-King-Platz 3, D-20146 Hamburg, Germany.

^* Correspondence to: pedro.castanheira@murdoch.edu.au

Handling Editor: Gonzalo Giribet

Invertebrate Systematics 39, IS25009 https://doi.org/10.1071/IS25009

Submitted: 13 February 2025 Accepted: 24 June 2025 Published: 18 July 2025

© 2025 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

We revised the orb-weaving spider genus Carepalxis L. Koch, 1872 and tested its monophyly using Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian Inference phylogenetic analyses, comparing our results to a previously published family-level dataset on world-wide Araneidae. We studied the placement of the genus and the classification of the informally termed clade ‘backobourkiines’ using phylogenetic analyses based on two mitochondrial genes, cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI) and 16S rRNA (16S), and two nuclear genes, 28S rRNA (28S) and 18S rRNA (18S). Approximately 12,000 araneid records (vials) from major Australian and overseas collections were examined during our taxonomic revision. All phylogenetic analyses supported a monophyletic ‘backobourkiines’ clade, but found a polyphyletic Carepalxis, with its Australasian representatives being part of the ‘backobourkiines’ and the Neotropical species being related to the Neotropical Ocrepeira Marx, 1883. Consequently, the genus was revised to include seven endemic Australian species, Carepalxis montifera L. Koch, 1872 (type species), C. bilobata Keyserling, 1886, C. ferreirasousai sp. nov., C. kolla sp. nov., C. megalostylus sp. nov., C. tholos sp. nov. and C. tuberculata Keyserling, 1886 (=C. furcifera (Keyserling, 1886) syn. nov.), in addition to C. beelzebub (van Hasselt, 1873) (=C. suberosa Thorell, 1881 syn. nov. = C. tuberculifera (Thorell, 1881) comb. nov., syn. nov. = C. tricuspidata Chrysanthus, 1961 syn. nov.), which is present in Australia, Indonesia (West Papua) and Papua New Guinea. The following new combinations for Neotropical species previously placed in Carepalxis were proposed: Ocrepeira camelus (Simon, 1895) comb. nov., Ocrepeira gibbosa (O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1889) comb. nov., Ocrepeira perpera (Petrunkevitch, 1911) comb. nov., Ocrepeira quasimodo (Ferreira-Sousa & Motta, 2022) comb. nov., and Ocrepeira topazio (Ferreira-Sousa & Motta, 2022) comb. nov. Within the backobourkiines, Carepalxis can be recognised by the presence of two cephalic humps in females and two enlarged megaspines apically on tibia II of males (both here considered synapomorphies of the genus), an anteriorly elevated abdomen usually with numerous tubercles, humps or sigilla in addition to the humeral humps, an elongated male pedipalp median apophysis bearing a small projection, and a female epigyne with broad lateral lobes, and, whenever present, conspicuous transverse slits instead of baso-lateral flaps.

ZooBank: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:4F888132-4EE9-417F-9A82-7F9C470C9FB3

Keywords: Australia, backobourkiines, cephalic morphology, mimicry, molecular systematics, new combination, New Guinea, new synonymy, phylogenetic analysis, taxonomic revision.

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