THE NEARCTIC SPIDER GENUS 
PISA U RINA (PISAURIDAE) 
By James E. Carico 
Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University 1 
This paper is part of a series of systematic studies on American 
spiders of the family Pisauridae and is concerned specifically with a 
re-examination of the revision of this family by Bishop (1924) as 
it occurs in the United States. Since Bishop’s work, numerous col- 
lections have become available to help provide a better understanding 
of the distribution and variation of each species. Additionally, new 
approaches to the study of systematics have given better insight into 
the evolutionary relationships within the group and have brought 
about a realignment in its generic and specific classification. The pur- 
pose of this paper, therefore, is to bring up-to-date the available in- 
formation on the systematics of the genus Pisaurina. 
Pisaurina is a rather common genus found in eastern North Amer- 
ica and Cuba, and one species, P. mira , is well known within its 
large area of distribution. The pisaurids are commonly referred to 
as nursery web spiders because of the habits of many members of 
the family, and Pisaurina seems not to be an exception. Species of 
Pisaurina are not as closely associated with the aquatic habitat as is 
Dolomedes , the only other known genus of pisaurids within the same 
geographic range (see Carico, in press). Instead, they appear to be 
wandering spiders which are typically found on vegetation and are 
frequently collected by such methods as sweeping and searching 
among weeds and shrubs. The natural history is considered further 
in the analysis of each species below. 
Distribution and evolution. As previously stated, Pisaurina 
has a distribution restricted primarily to eastern North America, 
but the distributions of individual species within this area bear some 
basic similarities to the ranges of certain species of Dolomedes , and 
thus there is an invitation to make comparisons between the two 
genera. In Pisaurina , as in Dolomedes , there are two species in the 
genus, specifically P. mira and P. brevipes, which have a very wide 
distribution in eastern North America (Maps 1, 2) while the re- 
maining two species, P. undulata and P. dubia, are restricted prin- 
cipally to the Coastal Plain and Piedmont regions of the United 
Present address: Dept, of Biology, Lynchburg College, Lynchburg, Vir- 
ginia 24504 
Manuscript received by the editor November 29, 1972 
295 
