Afrarchaea Forster & Platnick, 1984

Wood, Hannah M. & Scharff, Nikolaj, 2017, A review of the Madagascan pelican spiders of the genera Eriauchenius O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1881 and Madagascarchaea gen. n. (Araneae, Archaeidae), ZooKeys 727, pp. 1-96 : 1

Genus Afrarchaea Forster & Platnick, 1984

Afrarchaea Forster & Platnick, 1984: 24.

Type species.

Archaea godfreyi Hewitt, 1919: 196, figs 1-2 (by original designation).

Diagnosis.

Distinguished from all extant genera by the presence of a prominent keel on the FSGP (see fig. 58 of Forster and Platnick (1984), fig. 3 of Lotz (2006), and figs 1 c–d and 6 b–c of Lotz (1996)). The keel likely has been lost in A. royalensis and A. ngomensis given the central phylogenetic placement of these two species (Fig. 1).

Description.

See Forster and Platnick (1984) for description.

Included species.

12 described species, A. cornutus (Lotz, 2003), A. ansieae Lotz, 2015, A. bergae Lotz, 1996, A. entabeniensis Lotz, 2003, A. fernkloofensis Lotz, 1996, A. godfreyi (Hewitt, 1919), A. haddadi Lotz, 2006, A. harveyi Lotz, 2003, A. kranskopensis Lotz, 1996, A. lawrencei Lotz, 1996, A. ngomensis Lotz, 1996, A. royalensis Lotz, 2006, A. woodae Lotz, 2006. Two species originally described as Afrarchaea have been transferred: A. fisheri Lotz, 2003 and A. mahariraensis Lotz, 2003, both to Eriauchenus (new combinations).

Distribution.

South Africa.

Discussion.

Phylogenetic analysis based on molecular data recovered a monophylectic Afrarchaea with strong branch support ( Wood et al. 2015). This research supports the transfer of A. cornutus from Eriauchenius to Afrarchaea and the transfer of E. mahariraensis from Afrarchaea to Eriauchenius (Fig. 1). Furthermore, females of A. cornutus have a FSGP keel typical of Afrarchaea (see fig. 3 of Lotz 2006) and females of E. mahariraensis do not (Fig. 15 B–C).

Regarding Afrarchaea distribution, Legendre (1970) reported on a male and female specimen (not examined for this study) collected at Manjakatompo, Madagascar, which he identified as Afrarchaea godfreyi . However, Legendre noted that these specimens were different from A. godfreyi in some details (i.e., the absence of prominent cephalic spines and the absence of abdominal sclerotization). These differences suggest that these specimens are not A. godfreyi . Unfortunately, in the CAS collections only a single juvenile specimen has been collected from Manjakatompo. This specimen also has reduced spines on the cephalon (only one rudimentary spine is present), which is again suggestive that this specimen is not A. godfreyi . Furthermore, many Eriauchenius species endemic to Madagascar have the short fat “neck” typical of most Afrarchaea (other than A. cornutus and A. ansieae ) and also have reduced spination on the cephalon. The species E. fisheri , E. goodmani sp. n., E. harveyi sp. n., E. mahariraensis , E. ratsirarsoni , E. sama sp. n., and E. wunderlichi sp. n. all superfically resemble Afrarchaea in terms of carapace shape (Figs 9A, 10A, 11A, 12A, 15A). E. mahariraensis and E. fisheri were originally described as Afrarchaea based solely on carapace shape ( Lotz 2003). Current research on archaeids shows that carapace shape has evolved in parallel, with similar morphs evolving repeatedly ( Wood 2017; Wood et al. 2015; Wood et al. 2007), suggesting that carapace shape is not a good diagnostic trait for these genera. Phylogenetic analysis ( Wood et al. 2015) and morphological examination of numerous African and Madagascan specimens suggests instead that the African and Madagascan species are short-range endemics that are restricted to either southern Africa or Madagascar, but not both (Fig. 1). Furthermore, after over 10 years of extensive collecting in Madagascar by CAS researchers, specimens of Afrarchaea godfreyi have never been found. For these reasons we propose that the distribution of Afrarchaea godfreyi be restricted to South Africa until evidence suggests otherwise.