Under Construction

New World clade

Dimitar Dimitrov
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taxon links Phylogenetic position of group is uncertainPhylogenetic position of group is uncertainPhylogenetic position of group is uncertain[down<--]Pholcidae Interpreting the tree
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Tree from Huber (2000) modified after the results of Bruvo-Madaric et al. (2005)
Containing group: Pholcidae

Characteristics

The New World clade includes a quite heterogeneous group of pholcid genera; all of them, as the name of the clade indicates, are known from the New World. Spiders in this group also share some morphological synapomorphies such as the exposed tarsal organ, male palpal coxa with a retrolateral apophysis, large distance between the posterior median and the anterior lateral eyes, male gonopore without epiandrous spigots and anterior lateral spigots with only one piriform gland each.

Discussion of Phylogenetic Relationships

The exact limits of this group are still unclear. A fairly large sample of New World genera was included in two phylogenetic studies (Huber, 2000; Bruvo-Madaric at al., 2005) but both failed to find an unambiguous solution for the exact limits of this group and the internal relationships of the included genera. Therefore, “New World clade” is used as an informal name referring to the group of New World pholcid genera found to be more closely related to each other than to the rest of the genera in the family. Addition of more data and expanding the taxon sample may help to answer these questions. Several genera which have some of the New World clade synapomorphies are listed here but their position was not tested in a phylogenetic analysis.

References

Bruvo-Madaric B., Huber B.A., Steinacher A., Pass G. 2005. Phylogeny of pholcid spiders (Araneae:Pholcidae): combined analysis using morphology and molecules. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 37: 661-673.

Huber B.A. 2000. New World pholcid spiders (Araneae: Pholcidae): a revision at generic level. Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. 254: 1–348.

Title Illustrations
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Scientific Name Modisimus mango
Location Haiti
Specimen Condition Live Specimen
Identified By Bernhard Huber
Sex Male
Life Cycle Stage Adult
Copyright © 2007 Bernhard A. Huber
About This Page

Dimitar Dimitrov
Zoological Museum, University of Copenhagen

Correspondence regarding this page should be directed to Dimitar Dimitrov at

Page: Tree of Life New World clade. Authored by Dimitar Dimitrov. The TEXT of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License - Version 3.0. Note that images and other media featured on this page are each governed by their own license, and they may or may not be available for reuse. Click on an image or a media link to access the media data window, which provides the relevant licensing information. For the general terms and conditions of ToL material reuse and redistribution, please see the Tree of Life Copyright Policies.

Citing this page:

Dimitrov, Dimitar. 2009. New World clade. Version 12 February 2009 (under construction). http://tolweb.org/New_World_clade/135149/2009.02.12 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/

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New World clade

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