Leptopholcus Simon, 1893

Huber, Bernhard A., 2019, The pholcid spiders of Sri Lanka (Araneae: Pholcidae), Zootaxa 4550 (1), pp. 1-57 : 10

Leptopholcus Simon, 1893

Leptopholcus Simon, 1893: 474 . Type species: L. signifer Simon, 1893 ( Angola) .

Leptopholcus — Brignoli 1980: 651. Huber 2000: 76 . Deeleman-Reinhold & van Harten 2001: 201. Huber 2011: 61.

Notes. The genus Leptopholcus has been revised recently ( Huber 2011); it has a wide distribution in tropical Africa and Asia ( Huber 2011, Huber et al. 2014a, 2018). All known representatives are leaf-dwellers. Only two species seem to occur in Sri Lanka: the widespread and possibly introduced L. podophthalmus ( Simon, 1893) , and the Western Ghats-Sri Lankan endemic L. kandy Huber, 2011 . The two species are easily distinguished in the field: L. kandy has a long worm-shaped abdomen (as in most species of Leptopholcus ), L. podophthalmus a relatively short one (compare Figs 42, 45 ). Leptopholcus podophthalmus is a phylogenetically isolated species ( Eberle et al. 2018) that ranges from Sri Lanka to southern China and Singapore. Leptopholcus kandy is most closely related with the Southeast Asian L. borneensis Deeleman-Reinhold, 1986 and L. huongson Huber, 2011 ( Huber 2011; Eberle et al. 2018).

Figures

FIGURES 42–46. Leptopholcus, live specimens. 42–44. L. kandy Huber, 2011, male from Ethagala, female from near Belilena Cave, and male from Kitulgala. 45–46. L. podophthalmus (Simon, 1893), male from Kandy, and male from Mapalena Ella sharing web with cecidomyiid flies.