VOLUME 51 PART 2 MEMOIRS OF THE QUEENSLAND MUSEUM BRISBANE 31 DECEMBER 2005 © Queensland Museum PO Box 3300, South Brisbane 4101, Australia Phone 06 7 3840 7555 Fax 06 7 3846 1226 Email [email protected] Website www.qmuseum.qld.gov.au National Library of Australia card number ISSN 0079-8835 NOTE Papers published in this volume and in all previous volumes of the Memoirs of the Queensland Museum may be reproduced for scientific research, individual study or other educational purposes. Properly acknowledged quotations may be made but queries regarding the republication of any papers should be addressed to the Director. Copies of the journal can be purchased from the Queensland Museum Shop. A Guide to Authors is displayed at the Queensland Museum web site www.qmuseum.qld.gov.au/resources/resourcewelcome.html A Queensland Government Project Typeset at the Queensland Museum THE TRAPDOOR SPIDER ARBANITIS L. KOCH (IDIOPIDAE: MYGALOMORPHAE) IN AUSTRALIA ROBERT J. RAVEN AND GRAHAM WISHART Raven, R.J. & Wishart, G. 2005 12 31: The trapdoor spider Arbanitis L. Koch (Idiopidae: Mygalomorphae) in Australia. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 51(2): 531-557. Brisbane. ISSN 0079-8835. The type species of Arbanitis L. Koch, 1874, A. longipes (L. Koch, 1873) is redescribed from the rediscovered holotype male; from new conspecific material, males and females are diagnosed, and their distribution, habitat, and burrow are described. Several somatically diagnosable populations from southeastern Queensland and northern New South Wales are also identified and their variation described. A. longipes fits the previous diagnosis of Misgolas Karsch, 1878. A cladistic analysis of some Misgolas, Euoplos, Cataxia and Homogona species and the new species described herein provides support for the continued maintenance of Misgolas along with its rediagnosis. Arbanitis is radically rediagnosed and now includes only the type species and two new species from the Macpherson Ranges (A. robertcollinsi) and northern New South Wales (A. beaury). Three new Misgolas species—M. bithongabel, from Lamington Plateau and two others, closely allopatric or sympatric (M. echo, M. monteithi), are also described. Arbanitis, as here defined, is the plesiomorphic sister group of other Australian idiopids; biogeographic derivation from that indicates that the A. longipes species-group arose on the Lamington Plateau (above 600m) and the lowland species (A. longipes) survives in habitats from rainforest to remnant open forest. A key to Australian idiopid genera is provided. The process of matching conspecific males and females of sympatric congeners in somatically homogenous groups is discussed. Of the five new species, females of Arbanitis robertcollinsi and Misgolas species cannot be described because they are not confidently diagnosable; intervention of molecular methods to match them with conspecific males is proposed. Misgolas pulchra (Rainbow & Pulleine, 1918) is synonymised with Arbanitis longipes. Species previously included in Arbanitis (except A. longipes) are transferred to the resurrected Euoplos Rainbow, 1914; all New Zealand species are removed from the synonymy of Arbanitis and restored to Cantuaria Hogg. ! Mygalomorphae, Idiopidae, Australia, biodiversity, rainforest. Robert John Raven , Queensland Museum, PO Box 3300, South Brisbane, Queensland 4101, Australia [email: [email protected]]; Graham Wishart, “Scalloway”, Gerringong, N.S.W. [email: [email protected]]; 13 May 2005. Unlike most spiders commonly surveyed, the mangrove and other nearby maritime habitats Mygalomorphae are long-lived and often (Main, 1981; Churchill & Raven, 1992). subterranean. Mating maximally once each year Among idiopids of eastern Australia is a group and highly sedentary, they are ideal animals for of spiders which are quite attractive and surveys of soil and forest integrity, and especially distinctive. The yellow brown carapace with a effective for short-term surveys. Mygalomorphs, strongly arched caput contrasts with the stout at least in northern and eastern Australia, are yellow- to red-brown legs. The spiders build taxonomically better known than their burrows in embankments with a thick plug door araneomorph sisters. The exceptions are the often encrusted with moss. These spiders have ubiquitous Idiopidae. been placed in Arbanitis L. Koch, 1874 (e.g., Idiopids occur through most parts of Australia, Main, 1985a, b). A second idiopid, Misgolas notably absent from the far north and from Karsch, 1878, is the subject of ongoing studies Pacific islands including New Caledonia, but (Wishart, 1992) but differs from species placed in present in New Zealand and Tasmania (Raven, Arbanitis by Main (1985a) in the relatively 1985). They have exploited the most diverse lighter build and slender brown hirsute carapace; habitats—desert, open forest, rainforest, many species have dark brown stripes or montane areas snow-covered in winter, decorations on the retrolateral face of the pedal 532 MEMOIRS OF THE QUEENSLAND MUSEUM FIG. 1. Arbanitis longipes (L. Koch, 1873): A, B, F, female habitus, dorsal (A), lateral (B), ventral legs showing decorations (F). C, D, burrow entrance in open forest Camira (C, E), D, embankment beside rainforest, “End of the World”, Pine Mountain. femora, patellae and tibiae and palp. One of us would be the average difference between known (GW) is revising Misgolas Karsch, 1878 and is and new species for all Australian spiders). So finding a very diverse, new fauna. At present, the Misgolas is highly speciose. Australian complement of Misgolas numbers 19 L. Koch (1873) described Pholeuon longipes, species; the real complement is predicted to be from a single male from Bowen, northeastern about 6 times that (as Raven, 1988, had predicted Queensland. However, the generic name was TRAPDOOR SPIDER, ARBANITIS, IN AUSTRALIA 533 pre-occupied and was replaced by Arbanitis L. Koch, 1874. The genus remained monotypic until Hogg (1903) described A. maculipes, later synonymised with A. annulipes (C. L. Koch, 1841). Rainbow & Pulleine (1918) included seven species in Arbanitis. Of those, only two were retained by Main (1985a, b). In Main’s studies on Australian idiopids (e.g. Main, 1985a, 1967), a concept of Arbanitis was formed in the absence of firsthand knowledge of the type species. The type specimen was considered lost (Main, 1985a, b). Despite this, her synonymy (Main, 1985a) of Arbanitis included eight other valid names (including two New Zealand genera) and was probably the largest generic synonymy in Australian spiders. Unusual amongst Australian idiopids, the male of A. longipes lacks a tibial spur. Raven (1985) concluded that a tibial spur is plesiomorphic in the Idiopidae; hence, the absence of a spur in A. longipes must be considered a secondary loss. One of us (RJR) checked all collections in Australian museums for spur-less males assignable to Arbanitis (sensu Main) from northern Queensland (from Bowen, north). None were found but the sampling in the Bowen region could not be considered long term or intensive. Main (1985a) reported a similar failure to locate new material of A. longipes. In June, 1998, RJR visited the Zoologisches FIG. 2. Arbanitis longipes (L. Koch, 1873), holotype Universitat und Zoologisches Museum, male: A, spinnerets, ventral view; B, palpal bulb, Hamburg, to examine problematical ventral and retrolateral view; C, palpal tibia, tarsus araneomorph taxa. The former curator, Dr Gisela and bulb, retrolateral view. Rack, had specific material set aside for examination. This was from the Godeffroy the type) previously included in Arbanitis by collection on which Ludwig Koch’s pivotal Main (1985a) required a separate generic name; publication, Die Arachniden Australiens,was the oldest available name for those species is based. The handwriting on the labels of that Euoplos Rainbow, 1914. material had faded but the Godeffroy badge was The problem of difficult-to-recognise type still distinct. A number of specimens with such species was not, however, confined to Arbanitis. labels were examined but only two were then The type species of Misgolas, M. rapax Karsch, recognised: the holotype males (previously 1878, has a badly damaged, dried female as presumed lost) of A. longipes (L. Koch, 1873) holotype from New South Wales. As seen below, and of Habronestes spirafer L. Koch, 1873. The the problems of identifying females of closely latter will be dealt with elsewhere. In both cases, related Misgolas are substantial and only the definitive characters of the male from Koch’s compounded by the vague type locality and figures and descriptions were clear and faithfully damaged holotype. Despite substantial illustrated. knowledge of Misgolas from New South Wales, The re-discovery of the holotype of Arbanitis GW could only conclude that M. rapax is a longipes was met with considerable unease when species incertae sedis. However, GW was able to it was noted that it bore very strong resemblance use some leg muscle of the holotype to extract to species currently included in Misgolas and DNA and match it against fresh specimens and differed substantially from Main’s (1985a) males and establish the species identity of M. concept of Arbanitis. Hence, species (other than rapax. 534 MEMOIRS OF THE QUEENSLAND MUSEUM The questions addressed here are whether Arbanitis L. Koch, 1874 Misgolas and the newly defined Arbanitis are Pholeuon L. Koch, 1873: 471. Type species by monotypy congeneric, to which genus are the New Zealand Pholeuon longipes L. Koch, 1873 preoccupied by