THE RA VILLA GROUP OF THE ORBWEAVER GENUS 
ERIOPHORA IN NORTH AMERICA 
(ARANEAE: ARANEIDAE)* 
By Herbert W. Levi 
Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, Mass. 02138 
The contradicting synonymies presented in the two recent catalogs 
of spiders (Roewer, 1942; Bonnet, 1955) reflect the confusion in 
names and species of Eriophora in the literature. Comstock (1940) 
indicates that specimens of Eriophora have been found as far north 
as Oregon. Presumably this error can be traced to the use of the 
George Marx collection by McCook and Keyserling. The Marx 
collection, housed in the U.S. National Museum, has unreliable 
locality labels. No recent collections of Eriophora from central and 
northern California have been seen. 
The object of this revision was to find the differences among 
species of these very large, common orbweavers of the southern United 
States. The types of the old names were examined in hope of pro- 
viding the stability and unversality required of animal names. Only 
adult specimens that I have myself examined were used for mapping 
ranges. Unfortunately, South American collections of Araneidae 
in North American museums are unsorted and only a few specimens 
provided records for the southern limits of the distributions. 
Dr. M. H. Robinson of the Smithsonian Tropical Research 
Institute, Panama Canal Zone, called my attention to his immediate 
need of an Eriophora revision to make it possible for him to publish 
his behavior observations. I take this opportunity to thank Dr. J. G. 
Sheals and Mr. D. Clark for the hospitality extended when I worked 
at the British Museum (Natural History), and to thank Mr. Clark 
for numerous favors. Collections were made available by Dr. W. J. 
Gertsch and Dr. J. A. L. Cooke of the American Museum of 
Natural History, Dr. M. Grasshoff of the Senckenbergischen Natur- 
forschenden Gesellschaft, Frankfurt, Dr. J. Proszynski, Polish 
Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Dr. D. C. Robinson and Mr. C. E. 
Valerio of the biology department of the University of Costa Rica, 
San Jose, Dr. H. V. Weems, Florida State Museum, Gainesville, 
Prof. H. K. Wallace, University of Florida. Additional specimens 
were made available by Dr. L. van der Hammen, Natural History 
*M anuscript received hy the editor December 1, 1970. 
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