FURTHER STUDIES ON THE SYSTEMATICS OF 
AUSTRALIAN DIPLURINAE (CHELICERATA: 
MYGALOMORPHAE: DIPLURIDAE): DESCRIPTION OF 
THE MALE OF TROGLODIPLURA LOWRYI , WITH NOTES 
ON ITS AFFINITIES. 
By Barbara York Main 1 and M. R. Gray 2 
Introduction 
This paper 3 describes a recently discovered male specimen of the 
troglobitic Troglodiplura lowryi Main and attempts to place the genus 
in the taxonomic perspective of other Australian diplurines. 
Troglodiplura lowryi was described by Main (1969) from frag- 
ments of a specimen of indeterminate sex collected by J. and D. 
Lowry from Roach’s Rest Cave 43.5 km NE of Madura on the 
Nullarbor Plain, Western Australia. Because only dead arthropods 
and no living material of any taxa were known from Roach’s Rest 
Cave, it was unknown whether Troglodiplura lowryi was an extant 
species. It is therefore of considerable interest that in addition to the 
collection of a dead male specimen, a living specimen has also been 
observed by A. D. Davey in an unconnected cave north of the Bight 
in South Australia. 
Other records of troglobitic mygalomorphs 
Although several other mygalomorphs are known to inhabit 
caves in Australia, T. lowryi is the only fully troglobitic species, i.e. 
completely cave-adapted species. Prior to Main (1969) recording T. 
lowryi only two other troglobitic mygalomorphs had been recorded 
from elsewhere: a diplurid, Accola caeca Simon from the Philip- 
pines (Simon, 1892), which species is now included in Masteria 
'Department of Zoology, University of Western Australia, Nedlands, Western Aus- 
tralia, 6009. 
2 Arachnology Department, The Australian Museum, College Street, Sydney, 
N.S.W., Australia, 2000. 
’This paper is the eighth in a series by one of us (BYM) dealing solely with the 
systematics of Australian Diplurinae. Earlier publications in the series and others in 
which new diplurine taxa were described are listed in Main (1983b). 
Revised manuscript received by the editor January 8, 1985 
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