Lepthyphantes Menge, 1866

Tanasevitch, Andrei V., 2025, Survey of the Ethiopian linyphiid spider fauna. II. Subfamily Micronetinae Hull, 1920 (Arachnida: Araneae: Linyphiidae), European Journal of Taxonomy 976, pp. 255-282 : 262

Lepthyphantes Menge, 1866

Type species

Lepthyphantes minutus (Blackwall, 1833) , by subsequent designation.

Remarks

The genus Lepthyphantes was considered the largest in the Linyphiidae , and by 1993 included over 400 species. Saaristo and Tanasevitch (1993) started redelimiting the genus, initially identifying 31 species complexes therein. Many of them were subsequently given generic ranks. During the reorganization of the subfamily Micronetinae ( Saaristo & Tanasevitch 1996) , the species of the minutus species-complex, which included the type species, were recognized as the only ones corresponding to the diagnosis of the genus Lepthyphantes . As a result, the remaining species complexes started to be given generic ranks (e.g., Saaristo & Tanasevitch 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004; Tanasevitch 2001; etc.). The minitus -complex, i.e., Lepthyphantes (sensu stricto), which originally included four species, has grown to only seven species in subsequent years (see Tanasevitch 2020), while the remaining species of Lepthyphantes (sensu lato), which remained ‘orphaned’, without a specified genus, number over 160 species (Word Spider Catalog 2024).