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 usage of the term in English language, English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in p ...

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 ...

s in the family Salticidae (jumping spiders). The tribe has been divided into two subtribes, Aillutticina, with five Neotropical genera, and Sitticina, with five genera from

Eurasia Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago a ...

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 taxonomist in history, describing over 4, ...

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 , is a professor and Canada Research Chair at the departments of zoology and botany at the University of British Columbia, and the Director of the Spencer Entomological Collection at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. His research ...

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 Scienc ...

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'' (the name which has priority over ''Sitticus''),

circumscribed In geometry, the circumscribed circle or circumcircle of a polygon is a circle that passes through all the vertices of the polygon. The center of this circle is called the circumcenter and its radius is called the circumradius. Not every polyg ...

to include ''Sitticus'', ''Sittiflor'', ''Sittilong'' and ''Sittipub''. (Prószyński's '' Sittisax'' was retained, but his ''Sittiab'' was synonymized with '' Attinella''.) , 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 ...

'', 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 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 ''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 exp ...

'' Ruiz & Brescovit, 2005 **'' Gavarilla'' Ruiz & Brescovit, 2006 **'' Nosferattus'' Ruiz & Brescovit, 2005 *Subtribe Sitticina **'' Attinella'' Banks, 1905 **'' Attulus'' 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 and the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

. 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 (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

and

Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...

. 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