Taxonomic Research On Some Wolf Spiders From Southwest China

The wolf spider family Lycosidae is a common group in eco-system of agriculture and forest, which is one of spider families with the highest diversity. Currently,120genera,2387species are known throughout the world and22genera,300species from China. However, taxonomic system of this group is quite confusing. Species of Lycosidae have quite similar habitus, strongly sclerotized copulatory organs and little specific difference. Compared the research of the taxonomy of this family abroad, Chinese researchers were less focused on the detail characters of male palp, many taxonomic problems, such as synonyms, misidentifications etc. were caused and the further basal and application study on wolf spiders were heavily hampered. In this study, we learned the advanced experience of foreign arachnologists, revised28species from Southwest China on the basis of a great deal of materials newly collected or loaned, which belong to6subfamilies and11genera. Among them, two subfamilies, four genera are newly recorded from Chinese fauna. Four new species are found and three misidentifications, one new synonym are proposed. All species are described here together with56genital figures, photographs of habitus and copulatory organs and SEM photos. This paper is just the beginning of the revision of Chinese wolf spiders.