Wadicosa Zyuzin, 1985

Omelko, Mikhail M., 2024, New data on wolf spiders (Araneae: Lycosidae) from Laos, Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 72, pp. 235-251 : 244

Wadicosa Zyuzin, 1985

Type species. Lycosa fidelis O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1872 , from West Asia .

Comments. Wadicosa is a comparatively small genus of wolf spiders consisting of 17 named species ( WSC, 2024) and one species from Borneo which was described but not formally named ( Zehethofer, 1998). Wadicosa was established by Zyuzin (1985) as the only genus of Wadicosinae Zуuzin, 1985 with the type species Lycosa venatrix Lucas, 1846 . The genus diagnosis was amended by Kronestedt & Zyuzin (2009) together with the fixation of Lycosa fidelis O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1872 as a new type species. Males of Wadicosa can be recognised by the palpal tegulum having an anterior retrolateral process. Some species also have a posterior retrolateral process. Females have epigyne with oval or rounded foveolae (pockets). For the full list of characters, see Kronestedt & Zyuzin (2009).

Most species are restricted in their distribution to the Afrotropical and Indomalayan realms (ten and four, respectively). One species is known from the Palearctic; three species, including the type species Wadicosa fidelis , are known across the Palearctic and Indomalayan realms. The actual range boundaries of Wadicosa distribution remain unclear; however, they are evidently much broader than currently known. As mentioned earlier, one unnamed species is known from Borneo, and another poorly known species, currently placed in Pardosa under the name of P. bleyi ( Dahl, 1908) but undoubtedly belonging to Wadicosa , is described from Papua New Guinea ( Dahl, 1908).

Almost all Wadicosa are known from both sexes. Exceptions are W. russellsmithi Kronestedt, 2015 and W. prasantae Ahmed, Anam, Saikia, Manthen & Saikia, 2014 which were described using females only. Most species are welldescribed/redescribed and depicted thanks to Kronestedt (2015, 2017, 2023) and Kronestedt & Zуuzin (2009). However, a few Wadicosa species are poorly studied, being known only from the original descriptions. One such species is W. daliensis which was only known from south China (Hainan, Guangdong, Yunnan Provinces) until the present study. Despite this species being depicted in several publications ( Yin et al., 1997a; Yin et al., 1997b; Song et. al., 1999) all its images were taken from the original description. Because these images are very schematic, bulb and embolic division have never been studied before and the original diagnosis was made in Chinese only, I decided to redescribe this species in detail and re-diagnose it.