Three new species of the spider genus Philoponella Mello-Leitão, 1917 are described: Philoponella opelli n. sp. from Brazil and Ecuador, and Philoponella fluviidulcifis n. sp. , and Philoponella duopunctata n. sp. from Brazil. New records for Philoponella vittata (Keyserling, 1881), P. republicana (Simon, 1891), P. fasciata (Mello-Leitão, 1917) and P. divisa Opell, 1979 are provided for Brazil ...

Guilherme Bicalho Saturnino, ∗ Caio Padoan de Sá Godinho, † Denise Fagundes-Lima, ‡ Alcides Castro e Silva, § and Gerald Weber ¶ Departamento de F́ısica, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil Departamento de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto, Ouro Preto, MG, Brazil Departamento de F́ısica, Universidade Federal de de Ouro Preto, Ouro Preto, MG, Brazil

The Atlantic forest is a terrestrial biome that extends along the Brazilian coast and has been subject of intense deforestation for decades. There are presently several efforts to try to preserve the flora and fauna of what remains from this region (e.g., Coco et al. 2014, Maciel-Silva et al. 2014, Missagia et al. 2014), but several questions on how the distinct floristic units of this biome ar...

The Neotropical genus Austrohahnia Mello-Leitão, 1942 is revised, comprising four species from Argentina. The genus is here transferred to the subfamily Hahniinae Bertkau, 1878 from Cybaeolinae Lehtinen, 1967. Austrohahnia is diagnosed by a single synapomorphy, short setae ventrally on the abdomen, in immature as well as adult stages. The type species A. praestans Mello-Leitão, 1942 is redescri...

A traditional view of the nature of species holds that populations within species maintain genetic cohesion through substantial intraspecific gene flow and that the whole genome of a species is protected from interspecific gene flow by strong reproductive isolation. Both aspects of this view have been challenged. Reproductive barriers between recently evolved species can be incomplete and perme...

Two new species of Dolichothele Mello-Leitão, 1923 are described from Brazil and Bolivia, D. mottaisp. n. from Distrito Federal and the state of Goiás, Brazil, and D. camargorumsp. n. from the state of Rondônia, Brazil, and the La Paz region, Bolivia. Males of the two new species resemble Dolichothele bolivianum (Vol, 2001) in having a small subapical keel on the distal embolus and females in p...