Tetragnatha Latreille, 1804

Dimitrov, Dimitar, Álvarez-Padilla, Fernando & Hormiga, Gustavo, 2008, Until dirt do us apart: On the unremarkable palp morphology of the spider Sternospina concretipalpis Schmidt & Krause, 1993, with comments on the genus Prionolaema Simon, 1894 (Araneae, Tetragnathidae), Zootaxa 1698, pp. 49-56 : 51-53

Genus Tetragnatha Latreille, 1804

Type species: Tetragnatha extensa (Linnaeus, 1758) Prionolaema Simon, 1894 new synonymy

The genus Prionolaema Simon, 1894 is a junior synonym of Tetragnatha Latreille, 1804 as the only two species in the genus are members of Tetragnatha . This synonymy has resulted in two new combinations (see below).

Justification of the synonymy: The original description of Prionolaema is based on a subadult male specimen that, unfortunately, does not allow the examination of palpal morphology. As a result several somatic characters are cited in the diagnosis to differentiate this genus from Tetragnatha . The first and most important diagnostic character refers to the eye pattern of Prionolaema which has contiguous lateral eyes. Contiguous lateral eyes, however, are also observed in several Tetragnatha species. For example, the Hawaiian species Tetragnatha maka Gillespie, 1994 and Tetragnatha kea Gillespie, 1994 have the same eye pattern. The wider than longer labium with laminar portion of Prionolaema is not different from the morphology of the labium of Tetragnatha . The same is true for the other characters listed as diagnostic for Prionolaema such as the long and slender palp and the shape of the abdomen. Many Tetragnatha species are known to have elongated conical abdomens as the one observed in Prionolaema . Based on these observations we consider the decision to regard Prionolaema as a junior synonym of Tetragnatha fully justified.