NIKOLAJ SCHARFF
Project description
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(this project is done in collaboration with Tamás Szűts from the Hungarian Natural History Museum, Budapest, Hungary)
The genera Hispo Simon, 1886, Tomocyrba Simon,
1900, Gorgopsina Petrunkevitch, 1942 (fossil), Prolinus Petrunkevitch,
1958 (fossil), and Massagris Simon, 1900, all share a conspicuous
carapace constriction behind the posterior median eyes. The first four
genera have been united in the subfamily Hisponinae due to this
constriction, but no formal phylogenetic analysis have been carried out
to test this classification. As the living genera Hispo and Massagris
have both been taxonomically revised recently, our study concentrated on
the genus Tomocyrba. A total of seven Tomocyrba species have been
described; 2 from Madagascar (including the type species T. decollata
Simon, 1900) and 5 from East Africa. Our preliminary results show, that
Tomocyrba senso lato is polyphyletic and far more diverse than
previously thought. More than 15 new species have been found on
Madagascar and another 40 new Tomocyrba-like species have turned up in
Africa. Several of these species are, however, not congeneric with the
Tomocyrba from Madagascar and probably represent several new genera. We
present the various species groups and characters that can be used to
define them. We also present a first preliminary phylogeny of hisponine
genera, based on morphological characters. It suggests that Hispo and
Massagris are more closely related to each other than any of them are
with Tomocyrba. |
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