Selenocosmiinae Simon 1889

Raven, Robert J., 2005, A new tarantula species from northern Australia (Araneae, Theraphosidae), Zootaxa 1004, pp. 15-28 : 16

Selenocosmiinae Simon 1889

Selenocosmiinae Simon 1889: 204 ; Simon 1892: 147; Raven 1985: 118.

Poecilotherieae Simon 1889: 204 ; Simon 1892: 144.

Phlogieae Simon 1892: 144 . First synonymised by Simon 1903: 953.

Diagnosis: With ovoid lyra on anterior face of maxillae which may be reduced or absent, legs weakly spinose, if at all; males lacking coupling spurs on tibia I.

Remarks: The placement of taxa which lack a maxillary lyra (e. g., Yamia; see Haupt and Schmidt 2004) within the Selenocosmiinae only presents a phylogenetic problem if the alyrate taxa are considered the sister group of all of the other lyrate species. However, if the lyra has been secondarily lost in Yamia then that species may be better placed in Phlogiellus . In either case, the monothetic definition of the subfamily remains an unresolved issue. No phylogenetic analysis has ever been presented which could resolve this question.

Curiously, Simon (1892) diagnosed the tribes Phlogieae (and others) as differing from Selenocosmieae in that at least the posterior tarsi had the scopula divided by setae but later (1903) rescinded the separation. Haupt and Schmidt (2004: 202) lept from that kind of distinction to a more generalised but unsupported conclusion about the value of the division of the tarsal scopula: " Certain characters do not seem to be very useful for classification: Simon (1892) followed by Raven (1985) used the division of metatarsal and tarsal scopulae to distinguish different genera. " In fact, Raven (1985) never used the division of the metatarsal scopula but its extent and the tarsal division was not used to distinguish between genera (no diagnoses of theraphosid genera were provided) but in an identification key in which the differing states of the tarsal scopula were accommodated by having the genus appear twice in the overall key, e. g. Ischnocolus appeared in Group I and Group II. Furthermore, in a paper presented to the International Congress of Arachnology, Ghent, 2004, Guadanucci (in press) showed unequivocally that the division of the tarsal scopula is informative, provided it is not used to identify juveniles.