Loxosceles, Heineken & Lowe, 1835

Lotz, L. N., 2012, Present status of Sicariidae (Arachnida: Araneae) in the Afrotropical region, Zootaxa 3522, pp. 1-41 : 13-14

LOXOSCELES Heineken & Lowe, 1835

( Fig. 8)

Loxosceles Heineken & Lowe, 1835: 321 ; Simon, 1893: 272; Gertsch, 1958: 5; Newlands, 1975: 142, 1986: 62; Brignoli, 1978: 18; Gertsch & Ennik, 1983: 277; Platnick, Codington, Forster & Griswold, 1991: 54, 71; Dippenaar-Schoeman & Jocqu, 1997: 277; Ubrick, 2005; Jocqu & Dippenaar-Schoeman, 2006: 230.

Omosites Walckenaer 1833: 438 .

Considered a senior synonym of Calheirosia Mello-Leitão, 1917 by Brignoli, 1978: 18, and of Loxoscella Strand, 1906 by Gertsch & Ennik, 1983: 277; the spelling Lososcelis is an invalid emendation.

Diagnosis: Carapace longer than wide with deep fovea; clypeus porrect; sternum longer than wide; abdomen oblong with barbed or spine-like setae; and legs long and slender.

Distribution: Loxosceles is known from South Africa to southern Europe and from the tropical zones of North and South America. At present the distribution of this genus in the Afrotropical region can be divided into four areas: northwest, northeast, southern and Madagascar, with the species L. rufescens ( Dufour, 1820) reportedly ( Gertsch & Ennik 1983) being an introduced species into Madagascar. Duncan, Rynerson, Ribera & Binford (2010) also places it in Sudan and St. Helena. Duncan et al. (2010) also lists a specimen of L. rufipes ( Lucas, 1834) from Serra Leone.

Note: Newlands (1986) used abdominal colour in the identification of some southern African species. However, two specimens collected from the same cave in northwestern Botswana showed abdominal colouration that vary from a dark brown to a uniformly colour without a pattern. This indicates that colour is a veriable character and cannot be used in the identification of species .

Newlands (1975) synonymized four southern African species with L. spinulosa Purcell, 1904 , but in his 1986 thesis he revalidates them again. However these changes are still unpublished and are examined here.

Brignoli (1976) mentioned the possibility of six new species for the Afrotropical region (noted as species A to F). Of these, species F have since been described as L. vonwredei Newlands, 1980 . This would leave a further three or four new species still to be described.