Chile 2023
 

In March 2023 I visited Chile with one main objective: to find Aucana spiders, one of the few genera missing in the molecular phylogeny of the family. When Norman Platnick handed over to me a sample of these tiny Chilean pholcids in 1998, we thought they were representatives of Ninetinae. In 2000, I described the genus and several species, but their position within the family remained dubious. Certain aspects of their morphology suggested they might be miniaturized Arteminae rather than Ninetinae but without fresh material and molecular data the problem appeared difficult to solve. I found Aucana at numerous localities, always near the coast. Aucana seems to be a relict that is trapped between the Pacific in the west, the Andes in the east, the Atacama desert in the north, and the cold south. Below are photos of four species. Molecular data from low coverage genome sequencing (G. Meng et al., in preparation) strongly support my suspicion that Aucana is in fact a clade of miniaturized Arteminae. In addition, I found some surprises too. For example, Metagonia has apparently never been found in Chile, even though numerous expeditions and experienced collectors have visited Chile. I found two new species of Metagonia (below, upper row), both apparently closely related to the Argentinean M. strinatii. Some spiders apparently represent new genera, such as the three species shown below, lower row. .