Carolinea 77

L amos : Discovery of Belba sculpta M ihel č i č , 1957 173 Diagnosis With the general characteristics of the family Damaeidae. Apophyses Ba of postbothridial en- antiophysis mostly present, Bp usually absent. Prodorsal apophyses Aa and Ap absent. Dor- sosejugal and laterosejugal enantiophysis ab- sent. Propodolateral apophyses mostly absent, if present small and tip-like. Spinae adnatae gen- erally absent, if present then epimere II with 3 setae. Notogastral setae c1 and c2 not extremely long and not with multiple coils. Notogastral areae porosae between setal pairs h1 and ps1 absent. Apophyses Va, Vp of ventrosejugal en- antiophysis present or absent. Apophyses E2a, E2p of propodoventral enantiophysis mostly ab- sent. Epimeral setation 3-1-3-4 or with three or more setae on epimeres I-IV. Trochanteral seta- tion 1-1-2-1 or 1-1-2-2. Femoral setation 7-6-4-4, 7-7-4-4 or 7-7-5-5. Genual setation usually 4-4- 3-3, exceptionally 4-4-4-4. Genual associated se- tal formula 1-1-1-0. Tibial setation 4-4-5-4. Tibial associated setal formula 0-1-1-1. Tarsal setation generally 20-17-16-13, 20-17-17-13 or 20-17-17- 14, including famulus. Tarsus of legs I-IV without setae v2’. Tarsus of leg I without seta v2’’. Comments This diagnosis bases on earlier ones by B ulanova - Z achvatkina (1962, 1967, 1975), N orton (1979c), B ayartogtokh (2000) and M iko (2006). It consid- ers recent developments in damaeid systematics and allows a clear distinction between Belba and the genera Belbodamaeus , Dameobelba , Poro­ belba G randjean , 1936, and Tokukobelba . Several very different concepts of the genus Bel­ ba presently exist. They contrast strongly in the placement of the monotypic genus-level catego- ries Caenobelba and Protobelba . S ubías (2004, 2019) treats Caenobelba as a subgenus of Bel­ ba . This disagrees with the concepts of Belba of N orton (1979c), B ayartogtokh (2000), M iko (2006), W alter et al. (2014) and L amos (2016). None of the latter authors establish any link between Belba and Caenobelba , and they see them as being distinct genera. In the traditional classification as supported by N orton (1979c), B ayartogtokh (2000), W alter et al. (2014), and L amos (2016), Protobelba , which displays spinae adnatae, is seen as be- ing a subgenus of Belba . Alternative classifica- tory systems are employed by S ubías (2004), who removes Protobelba from Belba and locates it as a subgenus of Belbodamaeus , as well as by M iko & E rmilov (2017) and S ubías (2019) who view Protobelba as being a full genus without any special phylogenetic sister group relationship to Belba . The morphological evidence such as the shared epimeral neotrichy and the similarly shared nymphal porose sejugal apodeme and sac-like porose vestibules of apodemes I and II ( N orton 1979a, 1979c) suggests that Protobelba cali­ fornica ( B anks , 1904) is allied to the Belba co­ rynopus species group. Furthermore, the Belba sculpta species group appears to be phylogeneti- cally much more distant to the corynopus clade than is Protobelba. Therefore, I have included Protobelba within Belba . The question that then raises itself is how one would classify species possessing both a sculpta group morphology and spinae adnatae. Subsuming them under Belba appears to overstretch the diagnosis of the genus category Belba , especially considering that the sculpta group is morphologically so far removed from the corynopus group. The present paper accordingly follows B ayartogtokh (2004), E rmilov et al. (2013) and S ubías (2019) in exclud- ing Belba -like species with spinae adnatae but without epimeral neotrichy from Belba , locating them in Belbodamaeus instead. I have decided against establishing a new ge- nus level category for the Belba sculpta species group because of the substantial number of older genera which may possibly be interpreted as be- ing synonymous with such a genus or subgenus. Any one of the genera Belbodamaeus , Dameo­ belba , Dasybelba W oolley & H iggins , 1979, Subbelba or Tokukobelba , for example, may be broadened in its diagnosis so as to include the sculpta group. If one were to subsume the Bel­ ba sculpta species group under Subbelba , one would have a concept of Belba similar to that of S ubías (2019) with respect to his positioning of Caenobelba , a probable synonym of Subbelba , as subgenus of Belba . 3.5 Key to Belba species of the world The last comprehensive keys to the genus Belba were published by B ulanova - Z achvatkina (1962, 1975) a very long time ago. Since then several new species of the genus have been discovered, some have been redescribed ( M iko et al. 2017, E rmilov 2018) while others have been trans- ferred to genera such as Kunstidamaeus ( M iko 2010) and Tokukobelba ( L amos 2016). Due to the incomplete descriptions of a lot of the species listed below, and also because of the almost total absence of data on the geographical variation of