Panthea acronyctoides species-group

The P. acronyctoides species-group contains a single species pair, P. acronyctoides and P. virginarius, with P. acronyctoides populations arranged into two subspecies. The male is characterized by the bulbous vesica armed with a pair of unequal-sized cornuti, the female by the globular or oval single chambered corpus bursae and a short wide ductus, about 2 × as long as wide. Both species have populations with a strongly contrasting black and white pattern, very similar in external appearance to each other and to the Palaearctic species P. coenobita (Esper), but not found in any other North American species. The P. acronytoides group appears to be most closely related to the P. furcilla group. DNA cox -1barcode sequence data shows little differentiation within or between the two groups (Anweiler unpubl. data).