''Troglohyphantes vignai'' is a species of cave

spider Spiders ( order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species ...

of the family

Linyphiidae Linyphiidae, spiders commonly known as sheet weavers (from the shape of their webs), or money spiders (in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and in Portugal, from the superstition that if such a spider is seen running on you, ...

. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

Morphology

''Troglohyphantes vignai'' is a small sized spider with a body length ranging from 3.05 mm to 3.35 mm. It shows remarkable adaptations to the subterranean life, namely loss of pigmentation, reduction of the eye apparatus, thinning of integuments and heavy spination.

Synonymy

''Troglohyphantes vignai'' was described by Brignoli from specimens collected by Augusto Vigna Taglianti (to whom the species was dedicated) in the cave Buco di Valenza. In the same publication, Pier Marcello Brignoli also described a second ''Troglohyphantes'' species (''T. rupicapra'' ), which is distinguished from ''T. vignai'' by small morphological features. In recent years, the species validity of ''T. rupicapra'' was questioned by Pesarini, who proposed the synonymy ''T. rupicapra'' = ''T. vignai''. Such synonymy was recently confirmed on genetic base, and its currently accepted in 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 ...

Distribution

''Troglohyphantes vignai'' is endemic to the Western Italian Alps, distributed from the Cottian to the Maritime Alps. Populations of ''T. vignai'' are highly isolated from genetic point of view. The diversification of extant ''T. vignai'' lineages occurred during the Pleistocene glaciations.

Habitat

Preferentially found in caves and other mad-made subterranean habitats. The species show a preference for prey-rich areas of the cave, where the climatic stability is higher.

Phenology

Females and juveniles are found through the whole year. Males are commonly found from August to January, with a sex ratio (females:males) of 2.4:1.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2138695 Linyphiidae Spiders of Europe Spiders described in 1971