DESCRIPTION OF A NEW WOLF SPIDER IN THE GENUS 
PIRATA (ARANEAE: LYCOSIDAE)* 
By C. D. Dondale and J. H. Redner 
Biosystematics Research Institute, Agriculture Canada, 
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0C6 
Introduction 
The genus Pirata Sundevall consists of rather small, active wolf 
spiders that frequent the vegetation of bogs, swamps, margins of 
ponds and streams, and, more rarely, salt marshes. In a recent 
revision, Wallace and Exline (1978) divided the North American 
species of Pirata into groups based on genitalia, body size, leg 
setation, and color pattern on the carapace. Their insularis group 
contained two species, namely, P. insularis Emerton, which ranges 
from the western part of the Northwest Territories to New Brunswick 
and southward to Arizona and Florida, and P. cantralli Wallace and 
Exline, which was known only from Michigan and Ontario. Subse¬ 
quent collections of cantralli indicate that it ranges as widely in 
Canada as insularis, though southward only to Michigan. 
Wallace and Exline (1978) noted the presence of a prominent, 
basally-directed tooth on the median apophysis of the male palpus of 
both P. insularis and P. cantralli. This tooth is absent in representa¬ 
tives of other North American groups of Pirata, but is present in 
males of certain Palaearctic species of the genus such as P. piccolo 
Dahl (Holm, 1947, Fig. 9; Fuhn and Niculescu-Burlacu, 1971, Fig. 
103c), P. japonicus Tanaka (Tanaka, 1974, Fig. 14), P. procurvus 
(Bosenberg and Strand) (Tanaka, 1974, Fig. 31; Song et al., 1978, 
Fig. 9D), and P. praedatoria Schenkel (Song et al., 1978, Fig. 8E). 
This suggests that the insularis group is a widespread component of 
the world genus Pirata. 
The purpose of this paper is to describe a new species of Pirata, the 
male of which also has a dorsal tooth on the median apophysis and 
which we therefore assign to the insularis group. 
* Manuscript received by the editor January 23, 1981. 
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