Archaea hickmani Butler, 1929

Rix, Michael G. & Harvey, Mark S., 2012, Australian Assassins, Part II: A review of the new assassin spider genus Zephyrarchaea (Araneae, Archaeidae) from southern Australia, ZooKeys 191, pp. 1-62 : 17-18

Archaea hickmani Butler, 1929 nomen dubium

Archaea hickmani Butler, 1929: 46, pl. 2, figs 1-5.

Archaea hickmanni Butler: Canals 1934: 5, fig. 3.

Austrarchaea hickmani (Butler): Forster & Platnick, 1984: 23, fig. 69 (figs 40-50 show an unrelated species of Austrarchaea from New South Wales; see below).

Type material.

Holotype juvenile (not examined): no specific locality, Victoria, Australia, ~1922 (MV K097).

Other material examined.

AUSTRALIA: Victoria: no specific locality, 1936, C. Oke, 1 juvenile (AMS KS97261).

Nomenclatural remarks.

Archaea hickmani was first described by Butler (1929) from a juvenile specimen of unspecified providence, labelled and listed by Butler simply as “Victoria”. Forster and Platnick (1984) examined this holotype, stating that it was in rather poor condition, and noting that a second adult female (labelled as a “homotype”) accompanied the specimen, the latter apparently collected after the original description in 1929. The genitalia of this adult female specimen were illustrated in Forster and Platnick (1984, fig. 69), the specimen was briefly described, and the species was transferred to the genus Austrarchaea . Forster and Platnick (1984, figs 40-50) also presented scanning electron micrographs of a juvenile archaeid from near Sydney, erroneously regarded as being conspecific or very closely related to Austrarchaea hickmani based on the absence of setose tubercles on the carapace. However, this specimen is clearly a juvenile of an unrelated species of Austrarchaea , as evidenced by the abdominal tubercles (see Forster and Platnick 1984, fig. 40) and New South Wales distribution. The Australian Museum collection also has an additional juvenile specimen of Austrarchaea hickmani collected by C. Oke in 1936, similarly labelled as being from “Victoria”.

Based on the three known Victorian specimens identified by Butler as Archaea hickmani , the species is clearly congeneric and probably even conspecific with one of the four new Victorian species of Zephyrarchaea described in this paper. Unfortunately, given the unspecified collection locality of all three specimens, and thus the inability to unequivocally link the single adult female to the holotype or the type locality, this species must be regarded as a nomen dubium.