ORB-WEAVING SPIDERS ACTINOSOMA, SPILASMA, MICREPEIRA, PRONOUS, AND FOUR NEW GENERA (ARANEAE: ARANEIDAE) HERBERT W. LEVP Abstract. Actinosoma contains one species, A. pentacanihum. Spilasma has three species, two of which are new. Micrepeira has seven species, of which five are new. Pronous has 14 species, of which 11 are new. The new genera are Spinepeira, with one new species known only from a female; Hingstepeira, with four species, three of them new; Madrepeira, with one new species; and Tatepeira, with four species, three of which are new and of doubtful generic place-ment. There is one new generic synonymy and 11 new synonymies of species names. Species of all these genera are known only from the Americas. The species of several of these genera make unusual webs. Actinosoma pentacanthum lives over water on emergent vegetation. Hingstepeira, Spilasma, and Micrepeira build retreats into the web. Madrepeira makes a ladderweb. Most of these spiders are rarely collected. The names used by R. W. G. Kingston in his observations on unusual webs are identified. INTRODUCTION This is one of a series of papers revising Neotropical araneid orb weavers. Previous papers are listed in Levi (1993a). Since 1993, revisions of Lewisepeira Levi (1993b), Kaira O. P. -Cambridge (Levi, 1993c), and Acacesia Simon (Glueck, 1994) have been published. This paper is dedicated to those collec-tors who contributed specimens with pho-tographs of their webs. They are W. Eber-hard, J. Coddington, H. Hofer, and R. L. C. Baptista. Without their photographs and notes on web structure, this revision would lack important data. The photographs made it possible to place many of the spe-cies named by Kingston (1932) in his book on Guyana spiders. Kingston did not in-' Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard Uni-versity, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138. tend to describe new species and did so only because no keys were available and nobody could name the spiders whose un-usual webs he had observed and illustrat-ed. (See Note, p. 209.) Among the species described here are many that probably are quite common but are rarely collected. Actinosoma occurs on emergent vegetation and is known to dive and run over water if disturbed. Spider collectors are usually not equipped with waders or boats, and the knowledge that schistosomiasis occurs in areas in the Lesser Antilles, northern Venezuela, coastal Su-rinam, and eastern Brazil (I AM AT, 1992) further deters arachnologists from splash-ing in ponds. Pronous may be equally difficult to col-lect. More than half of the available spec-imens were picked up by A. M. Chicker-ing. Pronous makes a small web in leaf litter and disappears into litter at the slightest disturbance. Presumably by spending much time sifting leaf litter, Chickering got more specimens than other collectors. The genera in this revision are not close-ly related. Actinosoma has a paramedian apophysis, the conductor is in the middle of the tegulum area, there are no spines on the median apophysis, and there is no distal hematodocha (Fig. 9); in the female the epigynum is a broad lobe (Figs. 1-3). The characters cited are synapomorphies with Alpaida O. P. -Cambridge (Levi, 1988). Tatepeira, the other extreme, lacks a paramedian apophysis and has the con-ductor on the side of the tegulum, and the median apophysis has spines and well-de-Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., 154(3): 153-213, July, 1995 153
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