Segestria Latreille, 1804

Fomichev, Alexander A. & Marusik, Yuri M., 2020, Notes on the spider genus Segestria Latreille, 1804 (Araneae: Segestriidae) in the East Palaearctic with description of three new species, Zootaxa 4758 (2), pp. 330-346 : 331

Segestria Latreille, 1804

Type species. Aranea florentina Rossi, 1790

Diagnosis. Segestria differs from Ariadna Simon, 1893 , the only other genus of Segestriidae known in the Palearctic, by having cymbium longer than both the palpal tibia and the bulb maximal width (vs. palpal tibia longer than cymbium and bulb maximal width longer or subequal to cymbial length in Ariadna ), and also by having unmodified metatarsus I (vs. modified in the Palaearctic Ariadna , cf. Wunderlich 2011).

Comments. The genus Segestria , which comprises 22 species (including nomina dubia) was never a subject of a global revision. The genus has been treated only for Europe ( Brignoli 1984). Although Segestria has been reported from across the world (Palaearctic, Madagascar, Western Nearctic, South America, India, and New Zealand), most likely the genus is restricted to the Palaearctic. Since all well-known—i.e. informative description available—spe-cies occur in the Palaearctic (WSC 2019), except for S. florentina (Rossi, 1790) , it can be concluded that the last species was most likely introduced to the Neotropics. Of the three Nearctic species, only S. bella Chamberlin & Ivie , has been illustrated (male only). Its bulb is extremely large in comparison to all other Segestriidae , which cast some dubious on its generic assignment. Similarly, Segestria saeva Walckenaer, 1837 , described from New Zealand, has a palp with a complex embolus tip, a character not found in any other Segestriidae . For the species known from Madagascar and India, there are neither figures nor detailed descriptions.