The history of Australian Wolf spider taxonomy commenced in 1837 with the description of Lycosa irrorata Walckenaer, subsequently listed as 'nicht zu deuten' (nomen dubium) by Roewer (1955c) (At present, the whereabouts of the holotype of Lycosa irrorata is unknown, and I would certainly be happy obtaining any information which may lead to locating this specimen).
The first species currently recognised for the Australian fauna, was described by Carl Ludwig Koch in 1847, Lycosa funesta C. L. Koch, 1847 (recently transferred to the Australasian genus Venatrix; Framenau and Vink, 2001 ).
Carl L. Koch's work was continued by his son, Ludwig Koch, who, between 1865 and 1878 described 43 (!) of the currently (October 2007) 145 recognised species. He described most of these in his 'Die Arachniden Australiens. Nach der Natur abgebildet und beschrieben' (1871-1883). This monumental work, continued by Graf Freiherr von Keyserling, still remains the most elaborate work on Australian wolf spider taxonomy to date, and most likely on Australian spiders as a whole. Ludwig Koch based his descriptions mainly on material from the Museum Godeffroy (today mainly housed in the British Museum of Natural History, London, the Zoologisches Staatsinstitut und Zoologisches Museum, University Hamburg) and the Zoologische Museum of the Humboldt-University, Berlin.
Subsequently, four arachnologists contributed majorly to the Australian wolf
spider taxonomy, in many cases based on material from early scientific
expeditions into central Australia:
Other arachnologists who contributed to the Australian Wolf Spider taxonomy
included E. Strand, E. Karsch, A. T. Urquhart, W. J. Rainbow, R. H. Pulleine,
and P. T. Lehtinen & H. Hippa. The most recent additions to the Australian
wolf spider were contributed by C. Vink, J.-S. Yoo and myself, with a number of generic revisions mainly in the subfamilies Venoniinae (e.g. Anomalosa and Venonia) and Artoriinae (e.g. Artoria, Artoriopsis, and Diahogna). A few recent reviews concerned the Lycosinae (e.g. Venatrix, Tuberculosa, Dingosa and the monotypic genera Knoelle and Mainosa), but the generic arrangement in this subfamily does not reflect their phylogeny.
Between 1955 and 1960, Carl Friedrich Roewer,
a German arachnologist who revised many lycosid genera based on material mainly
collected in Africa, had a major impact on world wide lycosid systematics. He
re-defined and described a large number of genera using ill-defined,
non-genitalic characters which have subsequently been proven to be unreliable
in wolf spider taxonomy. Consequently, his genera do not in any way reflect
phylogenetic relationships for Australian wolf spiders. The problem with
Roewer's classification was summed up accurately by Brignoli (1983, page 432) and still
stands today:
"N.B. it is apparent that most recent students of this group [Lycosidae]
give little value to most of the genera described by Roewer in 1954 and 1960:
still it is necessary to list them as no acceptable new 'system' has yet been
proposed. Guy (1966, 1969) has proposed many synonymies and has downgraded many
genera to subgenus rank; as this author based his conclusions more on
nomenclature than on the study of material (or even of the original
descriptions) I cannot accept his conclusions."
156 wolf spider species in 24 genera are recognised in Australia today (October 2007):
|
Genus |
Number of species |
|
Subfamily Zoicinae |
1 |
|
Zoica |
1 |
|
Subfamily Venoniinae |
11 |
|
Allotrochosina |
2 |
|
Anomalosa |
2 |
|
Venonia |
7 |
|
Subfamily Artoriinae |
35 |
|
Artoria |
20 |
|
Artoriopsis |
7 |
|
Diahogna |
4 |
|
Tetralycosa |
4 |
|
Subfamily Lycosinae |
109 |
|
Agalenocosa |
1 |
|
Allocosa |
11 |
|
Alopecosa |
2 |
|
Cynosa |
1 |
|
Dingosa |
4 |
|
Geolycosa |
3 |
Hogna |
11 |
|
Knoelle |
1 |
|
Lycosa |
33 |
|
Mainosa |
1 |
|
Orinocosa |
1 |
|
Orthocosa |
1 |
|
Tasmanicosa |
1 |
|
Trochosa |
6 |
|
Tuberculosa |
4 |
|
Venator |
2 |
|
Venatrix |
26 |
(c) Volker W.
Framenau, 2007
Startpage of ‘The
Wolf Spiders (Araneae, Lycosidae) of Australia’
Homepage V. W. Framenau
Latest update: 17 October 2007.