Lathys Simon 1884
Creators: name: Marusik, Yuri
name: Koponen, Seppo
name: Fritzén, Niclas
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2009
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Arachnida
Araneae
Dictynidae
Lathys

description: <i>Lathys</i> Simon, 1884 <i>Lethia</i> Menge, 1869: 249. <i>Lathys</i> Simon, 1884: 321, <i>nomen novum</i> pro <i>Lethia</i> Menge, 1869 preoccupied by <i>Lethia</i> Hübner, 1816 in Lepidoptera. <b>Type species</b> : <i>Lethia varia</i> Menge, 1869 from Prussia. It is considered a junior synonym of <i>Ciniflo humilis</i> Blackwall, 1855 (= <i>Lathys h</i>., from England). The type specimens of <i>L. varia</i> seem to be lost. It is unclear as to whether <i>L. varia</i> and <i>L. humilis</i> are synonyms. <i>L. varia</i> may also be a senior synonym of <i>L. nielseni</i> (Schenkel, 1932), the coloration and habitat data of Menge (1869) may refer to both species. <i>Lathys humilis</i> is considered by several arachnologists, for example Lehtinen (1967), Thaler (1981) and Platnick (2009), to be the type species of the genus. However, Gertsch (1946) and Chamberlin and Gertsch (1958) clearly indicated that <i>Lethia varia</i> was the generotype, even though it is a junior synonym of <i>L. humilis.</i> Lehtinen (1967) seems to have been the first to split <i>Lathys</i> into eight species groups. The third group was named <i>humilis.</i> Lehtinen (1967) included three species in this group: <i>L. alticola</i> (Denis, 1954); <i>L. brevitibialis</i> Denis, 1956 (still known from males only) and <i>L. sexpustulata</i> (Simon, 1878) and seems to have forgotten to include <i>L. humilis</i> in the list. It is not clear whether all three species belong to this group. One subspecies, <i>L. humilis meridionalis</i> (Simon, 1874), known from Spain, France, Corsica and North Africa (Platnick 2009) is not mentioned by Lehtinen (1967). Its status remains unclear, because it has not been studied by taxonomists in recent years. All three taxonomic entries for this species belong to Simon (Platnick 2009). Following the removal of <i>L. nielseni</i> and <i>L</i>. <i>annulata</i> Bösenberg &amp; Strand, 1906 from synonymy with <i>L. humilis</i> (Thaler 1981; Ono 2003), and the recent synonymisation of <i>L. alticola</i> with <i>L. sexpustulata</i> (Ledoux et al. 2008) the <i>L. humilis</i> -group now includes five species and one subspecies. Only three of these (<i>L. humilis, L. annulata</i> and <i>L. nielseni</i>) have been properly studied and undoubtedly belong to the <i>humilis</i> group. The detailed morphology of the male palp in <i>Lathys</i> in general, and in its type species in particular, was unknown for a long time. There was no detailed written or illustrated description of the palpal tibia and bulbus. Thaler (1981) was the first to indicate and illustrate three tibial apophyses in <i>Lathys humilis</i> and <i>L. nielseni</i>. The structure of the bulbus in the <i>Lathys stigmatisata</i> -group was first studied by Marusik et al. (2006). They found that members of this group had a unique modification of the conductor, consisting of a very long upper part forming several coils over one another, a very long embolus, and a totally fixed terminal part of the conductor by the tibial apophyses and cymbium [cf. Marusik et al. (2006)]. The present study revealed that <i>L. humilis</i> and <i>L. nielseni</i> have the same conformation of the bulbus in general and the conductor in particular. As a result of this and previous studies it became possible to provide a new, revised diagnosis for the genus. <i>Lathys</i> can be easily distinguished from other dictynids by the presence of three tibial apophyses, the long and coiled upper arm of the conductor, which totally covers the tegulum, and a screw-like terminal part of the conductor arrested by the tibial apophyses and the cymbium (Figs 13, 15-17, 19). Females of <i>Lathys</i> cannot be diagnosed so easily. In all <i>Lathys</i> species studied by us (<i>L. stigmatisata</i> - and <i>L. humilis</i> -groups) the insemination ducts make a kind of loop or coil around the copulatory opening (cf. Figs 27, 30 and fig. 229b in Wiehle 1953). In addition, the epigynal fovea or the pair of copulatory openings are larger than or equal to the spermatheca or in some cases about two times smaller. The related genus <i>Scotolathys</i> Simon, 1884 has no loops (or coils) around the copulatory duct, and its spermatheca is much larger than its fovea (cf. Marusik et al. 2009).
description: Published as part of <i>Marusik, Yuri, Koponen, Seppo &amp; Fritzén, Niclas, 2009, On two sibling Lathys species (Araneae, Dictynidae) from northern Europe, pp. 181-195 in ZooKeys 16 (16)</i> on pages 183-184, DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.16.228, http://zenodo.org/record/292442
description: {"references": ["Simon E (1884) Les arachnides de France. Paris, 5: 180 - 885.", "Menge A (1869) Preussische Spinnen. III. Abtheilung. A. W. Kafemann, Danzig, 219 - 264.", "Schenkel E (1932) Verzeichnis der von E. Nielsen auf Oland und Smaland gesammelten Spinnen. Entomologisk Tidskrift 53: 202 - 209.", "Lehtinen PT (1967) Classification of the Cribellate spiders and some allied families, with notes on the evolution of the suborder Araneomorpha. Annales Zoologici Fennici 4: 199 - 468.", "Thaler K (1981) Bemerkenswerte Spinnenfunde in Nordtirol (Osterreich). Veroffentlichungen des Museum Ferdinandeum (Innsbruck) 61: 105 - 150.", "Platnick NI (2009) The world spider catalog, version 9.5. American Museum of Natural History, http: // research. amnh. org / entomology / spiders / catalog / index. html [accessed 10.02.2009]", "Gertsch WJ (1946) Notes on American spiders of the family Dictynidae. American Museum Novitates 1319: 1 - 21.", "Chamberlin RV, Gertsch WJ (1958) The spider family Dictynidae in America north of Mexico. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 116: 1 - 152.", "Ono H (2003) A new dictynid spider from Iriomotejima Island, southwest Japan, with a list of Japanese species of the genera Lathys and Brommella (Arachnida, Araneae). Bulletin of the National Science Museum Tokyo (Ser. A) 29: 7 - 13.", "Ledoux J-C, Braud S, Duffey E, Chereau L (2008) Lathys sexpustulata Simon 1878 = Lathys alticola (Denis, 1954). Revue arachnologique 17: 59 - 60.", "Marusik YM, Ovchinnikov SV, Koponen S (2006) Uncommon conformation of the male palp in common Holarctic spiders belonging to the Lathys stigmatisata group (Araneae, Dictynidae). Bulletin of the British Arachnological Society 13 (9): 353 - 360.", "Wiehle H (1953) Spinnentiere oder Arachnoidea (Araneae), IX: Orthognatha - Cribellatae - Haplogynae - Entelegynae. Die Tierwelt Deutschlands und der angrenzenden Meeresteile 42: 1 - 150.", "Marusik YM, Kovblyuk MM, Nadolny AA (2009) A survey of Lathys Simon, 1884 from Crimea with resurrection of Scotolathys Simon, 1884 (Aranei: Dictynidae). Arthropoda Selecta 18 (1 / 2): 21 - 33."]}