Laufeia

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Laufeia
Laufeia aenea 298361345.jpg
male L. aenea from Japan
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Chelicerata
Class: Arachnida
Order: Araneae
Infraorder: Araneomorphae
Family: Salticidae
Subfamily: Salticinae
Genus: Laufeia
Simon, 1889 [1]
Type species
Laufeia aenea
Simon, 1889 [1]
Species

See text.

Diversity
6 species
Synonyms [1]
  • OrceviaThorell, 1890
  • JunxattusPrószyński & Deeleman-Reinhold, 2012
  • LechiaZabka, 1985

Laufeia is a spider genus of the jumping spider family, Salticidae, with a mainly Asian distribution, [1] where they are found on tree trunks and branches or among leaf litter. [2]

Contents

Description

drawing of male from Bosenberg & Strand (1906) Laufeia aenea male 1906 fig137.jpg
drawing of male from Bösenberg & Strand (1906)

Laufeia species are mostly small, hairy, brownish spiders. The chelicera usually has a tooth with two cusps on the rear-facing edge. The male generally has a slightly hardened plate (scutum) on the upper surface of the abdomen. The genitalia vary considerably between species; for example, the male palpal bulb has either a long or short embolus, which may or may not be coiled. [2]

Taxonomy

The genus Laufeia was erected by Eugène Simon in 1889 for the type species Laufeia aenea , [1] which had been collected in Yokohama, Japan. Simon did not explain the origin of the genus name. [3] In Norse mythology, Laufeia was the mother of the god Loki.

Four more Laufeia species were known to Andrzej Bohdanowicz and Jerzy Prószyński in 1987; they doubted that three of them belonged in the genus. [4] In 2012, Prószyński and Christa Deeleman-Reinhold split off some Laufeia species into the genera Orcevia and Junxattus, noting the diversity of genital structures. A molecular and morphological study in 2015 showed that the original circumscription of Laufeia constituted a strongly supported clade, and Junxia Zhang and Wayne Maddison restored all the species to Laufeia, arguing that strong sexual selection could produce genital diversity even in closely related species. [2]

However, subsequent taxonomic work by Prószyński in 2019 and Yu et al. in 2024 has confirmed the validity of the separate genera Orcevia, Junxattus (now a synonym of Chalcovietnamicus), and Lechia, with many former Laufeia species transferred to these and other genera. [5] [6]

Species

As of September 2025, the World Spider Catalog accepts the following species: [1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Gen. Laufeia Simon, 1889", World Spider Catalog, Natural History Museum Bern, retrieved 10 September 2025
  2. 1 2 3 Zhang, J.X. & Maddison, W.P. (2015), "Genera of euophryine jumping spiders (Araneae: Salticidae), with a combined molecular-morphological phylogeny", Zootaxa, 3938 (1): 1–147, doi:10.11646/zootaxa.3938.1, PMID   25947489
  3. ↑ Simon, E. (1889), "Etudes arachnologiques. 21e Mémoire. XXXIII. Descriptions de quelques espèces receillies au Japon, par A. Mellotée", Annales de la Société Entomologique de France, 8: 248–252
  4. ↑ Bohdanowicz, A. & Prószyński, J. (1987), "Systematic studies on East Palaearctic Salticidae (Araneae), IV. Salticidae of Japan", Annales Zoologici, Warszawa, 41: 43–151
  5. ↑ Prószyński, J. (2019), "Survey of genus Laufeia Simon 1889 with diagnosis of seven new genera and description of 17 new species", Ecologica Montenegrina, 20: 122–152, doi:10.37828/em.2019.20.10
  6. ↑ Yu, L.; Lin, Y.; Yao, Z. & Li, S. (2024), "Nine new species of jumping spiders from China with notes on some known species (Araneae, Salticidae)", ZooKeys (1196): 1–75, doi: 10.3897/zookeys.1196.114510 (inactive 10 September 2025), PMID   38487096 {{citation}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of September 2025 (link)
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