The Sitticini are a

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide use of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. The definition is contested, in part due to conflict ...

spider Spiders (order (biology), order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight limbs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude spider silk, silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and ran ...

s in the family

Salticidae Jumping spiders are a group of spiders that constitute the family (biology), family Salticidae. , this family contained over 600 species description, described genus, genera and over 6,000 described species, making it the largest family of spide ...

(jumping spiders). The tribe has been divided into two subtribes, Aillutticina, with five

Neotropical The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In biogeogra ...

genera, and Sitticina, with five genera from

Eurasia Eurasia ( , ) is a continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. According to some geographers, Physical geography, physiographically, Eurasia is a single supercontinent. The concept of Europe and Asia as distinct continents d ...

and the Americas. One genus is unplaced within the tribe. The taxonomy of the tribe has been subject to considerable uncertainty. It was clarified in 2020.

Description

The group is now primarily defined by

molecular phylogenetic Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...

analysis. However, members can be distinguished from other salticids by the fourth leg being much longer than the third and by the absence of the retromarginal cheliceral tooth.

Taxonomy

The group was first described by

Eugène Simon Eugène Louis Simon (; 30 April 1848 – 17 November 1924) was a French naturalist who worked particularly on insects and spiders, but also on birds and plants. He is by far the most prolific spider Taxonomy (biology), taxonomist in history, ...

in 1901, under the name "Sitticeae". It was treated as the subfamily Sitticinae by various authors before being reduced to the tribe Sitticini by

Wayne Maddison Wayne Paul Maddison (born 1958) is a Canadian evolutionary biologist, arachnologist, and biological illustrator. He is Canada Research Chair in Biodiversity and a professor at the departments of zoology and botany at the University of British ...

in 2015. The taxonomy of the tribe has been subject to considerable uncertainty; generic boundaries were changed repeatedly between 2017 and 2020. For example, '' Attulus floricola'' was known as ''Sitticus floricola'' until moved to ''Sittiflor floricola'' in 2017, to ''Calositticus floricola'' in 2018, back to ''Sitticus floricola'' in 2019, and then to ''Attulus floricola'' in 2020. Most sitticines were placed in ''Sitticus'' until 2017, when

Jerzy Prószyński Jerzy Prószyński (born 1935 in Warsaw) is a Polish arachnologist specializing in systematics of jumping spiders (family Salticidae). He is a graduate of the University of Warsaw, a long-term employee of the Siedlce University of Natural Sc ...

split the genus into seven: ''Attulus'', ''Sitticus'' and five new genera ''Sittiab'', ''Sittiflor'', ''Sittilong'', ''Sittipub'' and ''Sittisax''. This division was not based on a phylogenetic analysis but was intended to be "pragmatic". A

analysis in 2020 restored most sitticine species to a single genus, ''

Attulus ''Attulus'' is a genus of jumping spiders that was first described by Eugène Louis Simon in 1889. The name is a diminutive form of a common prefix for salticid genera, '. Taxonomy In 1889, Eugène Simon separated the genus ''Attulus'' from the ...

'' (the name which has priority over ''Sitticus''), circumscribed to include ''Sitticus'', ''Sittiflor'', ''Sittilong'' and ''Sittipub''. (Prószyński's '' Sittisax'' was retained, but his ''Sittiab'' was synonymized with ''

Attinella ''Attinella'' is a genus of North American jumping spiders. It was first described by Nathan Banks in 1905 based on the type species ''Attinella dorsata'' (originally ''Attus dorsatus''). it contains only three species: ''Attinella concolor, A. c ...

''.) , the ''

World Spider Catalog The World Spider Catalog (WSC) is an online searchable database concerned with spider taxonomy. It aims to list all accepted families, genera and species, as well as provide access to the related taxonomic literature. The WSC began as a series of ...

'' recognized 58 species in ''Attulus'', as opposed to 15 in ''

Jollas ''Jollas'' is a genus of jumping spiders (Salticidae), found in Central America, the Caribbean and South America. Species , the World Spider Catalog accepted the following species: * ''Jollas amazonicus'' Galiano, 1991 – Brazil * ''Jollas ar ...

'', one of the next largest genera in the tribe.

Phylogeny

In 2020, Maddison and co-workers divided the tribe Sitticini into two subtribes, Aillutticina and Sitticina, each with five genera, and published a

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek language, Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an Phylogenetic tree, evolutionary tree because it does not s ...

showing the relationship among the genera in Sitticina:

Subtribes and genera

Genera included in the tribe Sitticini by Maddison and co-workers in 2020 were: *Subtribe Aillutticina **'' Aillutticus'' Galiano, 1987 **'' Amatorculus'' Ruiz & Brescovit, 2005 **''

Capeta is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masahito Soda. The manga won the Kodansha Manga Award for the '' shōnen'' category in 2005. The series consists of three separate arcs. The first is about Capeta's first experiences ...

'' Ruiz & Brescovit, 2005 **'' Gavarilla'' Ruiz & Brescovit, 2006 **'' Nosferattus'' Ruiz & Brescovit, 2005 *Subtribe Sitticina **''

'' Banks, 1905 **''

'' Simon, 1889 **''

'' Simon, 1901 **'' Sittisax'' Prószyński, 2017 **'' Tomis'' F.O. P-Cambridge, 1901 *''incertae sedis'' **'' Semiopyla'' Simon, 1901

Distribution

The five genera placed in the subtribe Aillutticina are found in the

Neotropics The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In biogeog ...

and the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

. The five genera placed in the subtribe Sitticina are native to

and the rest of the Americas. The unplaced genus ''Semiopyla'' is found from

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

and

Paraguay Paraguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay, is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the Argentina–Paraguay border, south and southwest, Brazil to the Brazil–Paraguay border, east and northeast, and Boli ...

. It is believed that the tribe originated in the Neotropics, and diverged rapidly more recently in Eurasia, with dispersal back into the Americas.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q89905799 Arthropod tribes