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5 November 2021 Hooroo mates! Phylogenomic data suggest that the closest relatives of the iconic Tasmanian cave spider Hickmania troglodytes are in Australia and New Zealand, not in South America
Siddharth Kulkarni, Gustavo Hormiga
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Abstract

Hickmania troglodytes is an emblematic cave spider representing a monotypic cribellate spider genus. This is the only Australian lineage of Austrochilidae while the other members of the family are found in southern South America. In addition to being the largest spider in Tasmania, Hickmania is an oddity in Austrochilidae because this is the only lineage in the family bearing posterior book lungs, tarsal spines and an embolar process on male pedipalps. Six-gene Sanger sequences and genome scale data such as ultraconserved elements (UCEs) and transcriptomes have suggested that Hickmania troglodytes is not nested with the family of current classification, Austrochilidae. We studied the phylogenetic placement of Hickmania troglodytes using an increased taxon sample by combining publicly available UCE and UCEs recovered from transcriptomic data in a parsimony and maximum likelihood framework. Based on our phylogenetic results we formally transfer Hickmania troglodytes from Austrochilidae to the family Gradungulidae. The cladistic placement of Hickmania in the family Gradungulidae fits the geographic distribution of both gradungulids (restricted to Australia and New Zealand) and austrochilids (restricted to southern South America) more appropriately.

© CSIRO 2021
Siddharth Kulkarni and Gustavo Hormiga "Hooroo mates! Phylogenomic data suggest that the closest relatives of the iconic Tasmanian cave spider Hickmania troglodytes are in Australia and New Zealand, not in South America," Invertebrate Systematics 35(8), 850-856, (5 November 2021). https://doi.org/10.1071/IS21030
Received: 15 April 2021; Accepted: 11 June 2021; Published: 5 November 2021
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