Unknown species from China: The case of phrurolithid spiders (Araneae, Phrurolithidae)

DEAR EDITOR,

Three new genera and 46 new species of phrurolithid spiders(Araneae, Phrurolithidae) are described from Jiangxi Province,southern China.These results support our hypothesis that a large percentage of China’s species remain unknown (Li,2020).

Some 250 years after Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus devised a formal system for classifying the diversity of nature,more than two million accepted species have been listed in the recent Catalogue of Life (COL) (Costello et al., 2022).However, 86% of the Earth’s species are yet to be fully described (Mora et al., 2011), indicating that less than 15% of extant species are catalogued.For example, 146 154 fungal species have been recorded (COL, 2022), but an estimated 2.2-5.1 million species remain undescribed (Hawksworth &Lücking, 2017; O’Brien et al., 2005).Furthermore, within the animal kingdom, 1.5 million species have been described in 40 phyla (Zhang, 2013), but an estimated 7.8 million terrestrial species and 2.2 million oceanic species remain undiscovered(Mora et al., 2011).

In China, approximately 250 000 species have been catalogued, including 164 182 species of animals, 8 610 species of bacteria, 1 970 species of Chromista, 27 900 species of fungi, 38 394 species of plants, 2 897 species of protozoa, and 2 800 species of viruses (Figure 1;Supplementary Material I), with an average increase of 6 500 species per year over the last 20 years.According to the unknown species percentage determined by Mora et al.(2011), there are likely to be 1.4 million unknown species in China.This high prediction of unknown species is supported by previous research on spiders within a 11 km2peninsular area in Xishuangbanna, China, where 782 spider species were described (Li, 2020), with at least 200 more awaiting description.Of note, only 66 spider species were known from the same area in 2006.

Figure1 Speciesscape in China, wherethe size of individual organismsapproximately correspondstothe number of speciesdescribed in thehigher taxontheyrepresent (For data sources, please seeSupplementary Material I)

Our current study on the spider family Phrurolithidae Banks,1892 from Jiangxi provides additional support for the high percentage of unknown species in China.The spider family Phrurolithidae includes 261 species in 15 genera (Li, 2020),with 124 species reported from Asia in the last 20 years alone.An extensive survey of phrurolithid spiders from October 2020 to May 2021 in south Jiangxi yielded 46 new species.For detailed morphological descriptions, diagnoses, and illustrations of the new species, please see Supplementary Material II.

NOMENCLATURAL ACTS REGISTRATION

The type material in this paper is housed in the Animal Specimen Museum, College of Life Science, Jinggangshan University (ASM-JGSU).The electronic version of this article in portable document format represents a published work according to the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), and hence the new names contained in the electronic version are effectively published under the Code from the electronic edition alone (see Articles 8.5-8.6 of the Code).This published work and the nomenclatural acts it contains have been registered in ZooBank, the online registration system for the ICZN.The ZooBank LSIDs (Life Science Identifiers) can be resolved, and the associated information can be viewed through any standard web browser by appending the LSID to the prefix http://zoobank.org/.

Publication LSID: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub: FDF4A17E-410B-478E-BAC7-7D45CB8B7374

AcrolithusLiu & S.Li gen.nov.

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AculithusLiu & S.Li gen.nov.

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GrandilithusLiu & S.Li gen.nov.

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Acrolithus jiulongLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Acrolithus lingyunLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Acrolithus ruyiiLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Acrolithus shijiaoLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Acrolithus xiajingLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Acrolithus xiaojingLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Acrolithus yeniuLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Aculithus chongyiLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Aculithus taishanLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Aculithus xunwuLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Grandilithus anyuanLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Grandilithus aobeiLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Grandilithus dingnanLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Grandilithus donggulingLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Grandilithus fengshanLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Grandilithus jiangshanLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Grandilithus jingshiLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Grandilithus longjiatangLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Grandilithus nananLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Grandilithus ningduLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Grandilithus taiheLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Grandilithus tianyushanLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Grandilithus tupingaoLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Grandilithus wanziliLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

LSID: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:62CFB297-E10A-4AC4-910B-03DF6C3ED822

Grandilithus yunyinLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Otacilia aotouLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Otacilia dawushanLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Otacilia dongshangLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Otacilia fuxiLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Otacilia guizhumaoLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Otacilia hushandongLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Otacilia jiulianshanLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Otacilia linghuaLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Otacilia longbuLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Otacilia pingLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Otacilia qingyuanLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Otacilia sanbaiLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Otacilia shuijiangLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Otacilia tianhuaLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Otacilia wanshiLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Otacilia wuzhifengLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Otacilia xiangshanLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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Otacilia xiaobuLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

LSID: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:61FCAF83-4856-4B2A-ACE1-4A8BBD27DB16

Otacilia xingguoLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

LSID: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:C6FEE5F8-FBBC-48FD-8C64-CBDC2A0ABD97

Otacilia yangmingLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

LSID: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:5C558155-19B1-4A05-B7FD-68CEDCCB14DE

Otacilia zhonglongLiu & S.Li sp.nov.

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SCIENTIFIC FIELD SURVEY PERMISSION INFORMATION

Permission for field surveys in Jiangxi was granted by the Jiangxi Provincial Department of Forestry, Nanchang, China.

SUPPLEMENTARY DATA

Supplementary data (I, Figure 1 source of data; II, taxonomy of Phrurolithidae from Jiangxi, China) to this article can be found online.

COMPETING INTERESTS

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

AUTHORS’ CONTRIBUTIONS

Y.H.X.and S.Q.L.designed the study.K.K.L., Y.H.Y., Z.Y.M.,M.H.F., W.H.L., and X.X.contributed to fieldwork and performed morphological species identification.K.K.L., S.Q.L.,and X.Q.Z.drafted and revised the manuscript.All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.