Linothele Karsch, 1879

Nicoletta, M., Ochoa, J. A., Chaparro, J. C. & Ferretti, N., 2022, A new species of Linothele (Araneae: Dipluridae) from Peru, Zoosystematica Rossica (China) 31 (1), pp. 134-142 : 135

Genus Linothele Karsch, 1879

Type species: Linothele curvitarsis Karsch, 1879 ( Venezuela: Caracas ) .

Remarks. Linothele can be distinguished from all other Diplurinae by one morphological feature, the absence of a maxillary lyra ( Raven, 1985; Drolshagen & Bäckstam, 2021). Dupérré & Tapia (2015) suggested two additional characteristics to effectively diagnose the genus Linothele , i.e. the retrolateral spur on tibia I and a small tubercle on metatarsus I in males, and receptacles joined at the base and medially positioned vesicles in females. However, those characteristics are shared with some species of other diplurid genera, such as Harmonicon F.O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1896 ( Drolshagen & Bäckstam, 2011), Trechona C.L. Koch, 1850 ( Guadanucci et al., 2016) and Diplura C.L. Koch, 1850 ( Pedroso et al., 2016, 2018). Furthermore, the receptacles of some Linothele species neither are joined at the base nor have medially positioned vesicles ( Drolshagen & Bäckstam, 2021).

Most species of Linothele build sheet-webs ending with a tubular retreat ( Paz, 1988; Drolshagen & Bäckstam, 2021), with the apparent exception of L. cavicola Goloboff, 1994 ( Goloboff, 1994). As pointed out by Drolshagen & Bäckstam (2021), the spiders rapidly retreat upon disturbance, making them hard to collect. Consequently, the descriptions of almost 70% of the known species of Linothele are only based on females, which are commonly captured by hand from their webs. Males seem harder to collect as they do not build webs, but instead, they wander around in search of females after reaching maturity and possibly also due to seasonal patterns.

All the Peruvian species of Linothele are known only from their type localities in Peru and have an unknown natural history. Linothele jelskii is known from Peru, but without an exact location; L. monticolens is known only from Huadquina, L. spinosa , only from Iquitos, and L. uniformis , only from Machu-Picchu.