Laufeia
| Laufeia | |
|---|---|
| male L. aenea from Japan | |
| Scientific classification | |
| 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] | |
| |
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]
Description
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]
Species
As of September 2025, the World Spider Catalog accepts the following species:[1]
- Laufeia aenea Simon, 1889 (type species) – China, Korea, Japan
- Laufeia aerihirta (Urquhart, 1888) – New Zealand
- Laufeia banna Wang & Li, 2021 – China
- Laufeia concava Zhang & Maddison, 2012 – Malaysia
- Laufeia sasakii Ikeda, 1998 – Japan
- Laufeia zhangae Wang & Li, 2022 – China, Vietnam
References
- ^ a b c d e f "Gen. Laufeia Simon, 1889", World Spider Catalog, Natural History Museum Bern, retrieved 10 September 2025
- ^ a b c 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
- ^ 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
- ^ Bohdanowicz, A. & Prószyński, J. (1987), "Systematic studies on East Palaearctic Salticidae (Araneae), IV. Salticidae of Japan", Annales Zoologici, Warszawa, 41: 43–151
- ^ 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