A review of the Chinese nursery-web spiders (Araneae, Pisauridae)

The present paper deals with nine genera and 32 species of the family Pisauridae from China, including two new genera, Dianpisaura (type species, Pisaura lizhii Zhang 2000) and Qianlingula (type species, Qianlingula bilamellata new species), and 11 new species, Dolomedes costatus, D. raptoroides, Eurychoera banna, Hygropoda argentata, H. campanulata, H. menglun, H. yunnan, Qianlingula bilamellata, Q. jiafu, Q. turbinata and Thalassius paralbocinctus. The genus Eurychoera Thorell 1897 and the species Perenethis sindica (Simon 1897) are newly recorded from China. The males of the species Dianpisaura lizhii (Zhang 2000) and Dolomedes mizhoanus Kishida 1936 are described for the first time. The study indicates that Thalassius bottrelli Barrion & Litsinger 1995 and T. balingkinitanus Barrion & Litsinger 1995 from the Philippines should be transferred to the genus Hygropoda. The species Dolomedes insurgens Chamberlin 1924 and D. pallitarsis Donitz & Strand 1906 are shown to be the junior synonyms of D. saganus Bosenberg & Strand 1906, and the species D. strandi Bonnet 1929 is considered to be a junior synonym of D. senilis Simon 1880. Scanning electron microscopy is used to study the spigot morphology of several pisaurids. The SEM results indicate the differences of pisaurid spigots at the generic level, both in shape and numbers. A cladistic analysis of 21 species from China is presented.