Pionothele

Pionothele is a genus of African mygalomorph spiders in the family Pycnothelidae. It was first described by William Frederick Purcell in 1902.[2] As of June 2020 it contains three species, found in Namibia and South Africa: P. capensis, P. gobabeb, and P. straminea.[1] Originally placed with the Ctenizidae,[2] it was transferred to the funnel-web trapdoor spiders in 1985,[3] then to the Pycnothelidae in 2020.[4]

Pionothele
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Subphylum:	Chelicerata
Class:	Arachnida
Order:	Araneae
Infraorder:	Mygalomorphae
Family:	Pycnothelidae
Genus:	Pionothele Purcell, 1902[1]
Type species
P. straminea Purcell, 1902
Species
P. capensis Zonstein, 2016 – South Africa P. gobabeb Bond & Lamb, 2019 – Namibia P. straminea Purcell, 1902 – South Africa

See also

• List of Pycnothelidae species

References

1. "Gen. Pionothele Purcell, 1902". World Spider Catalog Version 20.0. Natural History Museum Bern. 2020. doi:10.24436/2. Retrieved 2020-07-11.
2. Purcell, W. F. (1902). "New South African trap-door spiders of the family Ctenizidae in the collection of the South African Museum". Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society. 11: 348–382.
3. Raven, R. J. (1985). "The spider infraorder Mygalomorphae (Araneae): Cladistics and systematics". Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. 182: 93.
4. Opatova, V.; et al. (2020). "Phylogenetic systematics and evolution of the spider infraorder Mygalomorphae using genomic scale data". Systematic Biology. 69 (4): 701–702. doi:10.1093/sysbio/syz064.

Further reading

• Zonstein, S. L. (2016). "New data on the spider genus Pionothele (Araneae: Nemesiidae), with description of a new species from South Africa". Israel Journal of Entomology. 46: 31–42.
• Bond, J. E.; Lamb, T. (2019). "A new species of Pionothele from Gobabeb, Namibia (Araneae, Mygalomorphae, Nemesiidae)". ZooKeys. 851: 17–25.
• Tucker, R. W. E. (1917). "On some South African Aviculariidae (Arachnida). Families Migidae, Ctenizidae, Diplotheleae and Dipluridae". Annals of the South African Museum. 17: 79–138.