Heteroonops (Araneae, Oonopidae) spiders from Hispaniola: the discovery of ten new species

By

Dupérré, N. (Nadine),
Francisco, Charlotte
Santana-Propper, Ella
Agnarsson, Ingi
Binford, Greta J.

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2020

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

964

Pages

1--30

Subjects

Biodiversity hotspot , Caribbean biogeography , goblin spiders , molecular phylogeny

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.964.51554

 

Abstract

The Caribbean biodiversity hotspot harbors vast reserves of undiscovered species. A large-scale inventory of Caribbean arachnids (CarBio) is uncovering new species across the arachnid tree of life, and allowing inference of the evolutionary history that has generated this diversity. Herein we describe ten new species of Heteroonops (Oonopidae, or goblin spiders), from Hispaniola: H. scapulasp. nov., H. jurassicussp. nov., H. aylinalegreaesp. nov., H. verrucasp. nov., H. renebarbaisp. nov., H. yumasp. nov., H. carlosviquezisp. nov., H. gabrielsantosisp. nov., H. solanllycarreroaesp. nov. and H. constanzasp. nov. The occurrence of the pantropical type species Heteroonops spinimanus (Simon, 1891) is reported and new localities are given for: H. validus (Bryant, 1948), H. vega (Platnick & Dupérré, 2009) and H. castelloides (Platnick & Dupérré, 2009). Molecular phylogenies indicate substantial genetic divergence separating these taxa. This work adds to evidence that the depth of diversity in the Caribbean biodiversity hotspot is particularly striking for tiny taxa living in leaf litter.