Philodromus Walckenaer, 1826

Zhang, Jianshuang, Zhang, Chengwen & Zhong, Yang, 2025, On small huntsman spiders (Araneae, Philodromidae) occurring in Guizhou and Hubei provinces, China, ZooKeys 1240, pp. 327-368 : 327-368

Genus Philodromus Walckenaer, 1826

Type species.

Araneus aureolus Clerck, 1757 from Europe, Turkey, Caucasus, Russia (Europe to Central Asia and Middle Siberia), Kazakhstan, Iran, Central Asia, Mongolia, China, Korea, Japan.

Diagnosis.

See Dondale and Redner (1976).

Comments.

Philodromus is the type genus of Philodromidae and currently includes 214 extant species that are found worldwide except for the Polar Regions (mainly distributed in the Old World and North America, except three from Australia and only one recorded in South America respectively) ( WSC 2025), 21 species of which have been recorded from China. This genus is one of the largest of Philodromidae and comprises 41 % of the total number of species of the family ( WSC 2025).

Although Philodromus is rather well known for its high species diversity, the genus remains inadequately studied, and the species diversity is still insufficiently known (mostly related to its alpha taxonomy). The possible reasons include, but are not limited to the following: almost half of the species are described based on a single sex or juveniles (15 from males only, 79 from females only, eight from juveniles only) ( WSC 2025); for many species described in earlier studies, original descriptions are rather brief, and illustrations are absent or inadequate ( Long et al. 2022; WSC 2025); and the lack of available molecular data – we can obtain COI sequences for only 45 species through NCBI (2025).

The insufficiency of fundamental information in alpha taxonomy poses a significant obstacle to the advancement of beta taxonomy (i. e., phylogenetic studies). Several major taxonomic studies on a regional scale have been conducted, e. g., Dondale (1961, 1963), and Dondale and Redner (1968, 1969, 1975, 1976, 1978) for the North American species, Muster and his coauthors ( Muster and Thaler 2004; Muster et al. 2007; Muster 2009), and Wunderlich (2012) for the European species; however, these revisionary studies often exclude species from Asia (potentially due to the aforementioned lack of foundational taxonomic information), and the debate on the group’s limits and internal structure of this family remains open ( WSC 2025). According to the quite diverse copulatory structures of both sexes, different camouflage behaviours and habitat preferences, Philodromus sensu lato has been regarded as paraphyletic and needs to be split ( Wunderlich 2012). However, we agree with Muster (2009) that the elevation of an autapomorphic species group would render Philodromus paraphyletic and in need of an extensive, large-scale review of the genus. Consequently, the present study follows the WSC (2025), and places all treated species in Philodromus sensu lato. We provide only the fundamental information on these species (such as detailed descriptions, supplementary illustrations, and DNA barcodes) for species delimitation, matching of sexes and future use. A review of the genus is not within the scope of this work.