Loria Stephanie F, Frank Svea-Celina, Dupérré Nadine, Smith Helen M, Jones Braxton, Buzatto Bruno A, Harms Danilo
Museum of Nature - Hamburg, Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change, Hamburg, Germany.
Fachbereich Biologie, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.
BMC Ecol Evol. 2025 Jan 13;25(1):7. doi: 10.1186/s12862-024-02332-0.
The Sydney funnel-web spider Atrax robustus O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1877 is an iconic Australian species and considered among the most dangerously venomous spiders for humans. Originally described in 1877 from a single specimen collected in "New Holland", this spider has a complex taxonomic history. The most recent morphological revision of funnel-web spiders (Atracidae) lists this species as both widespread and common in the Sydney Basin bioregion and beyond, roughly 250 km from the Newcastle area south to the Illawarra, and extending inland across the Blue Mountains. Morphological variability and venom diversity in this species appear to be unusually high, raising questions about species concepts and diversity in these spiders. In this study, we use a combination of molecular phylogenetics, divergence time analyses and morphology to establish the Sydney funnel-web spider as a complex of three species. The "real" Sydney funnel-web spider Atrax robustus is relatively widespread in the Sydney metropolitan region. A second species, Atrax montanus (Rainbow, 1914), which is revalidated here, overlaps but mainly occurs further south and west, and a third larger species, Atrax christenseni sp. nov., is found in a small area surrounding Newcastle to the north. The revised taxonomy for funnel-web spiders may have practical implications for antivenom production and biochemical studies on spider venoms. Although no human fatalities have occurred since the development of antivenom in the 1980s, antivenom for Sydney funnel-web spiders might be optimized by considering biological differentiation at the species level.
悉尼漏斗网蜘蛛（Atrax robustus O. Pickard-Cambridge，1877）是澳大利亚的标志性物种，被认为是对人类最具危险性的有毒蜘蛛之一。该蜘蛛最初于1877年根据在“新荷兰”采集的单个标本进行描述，其分类历史复杂。漏斗网蜘蛛（Atracidae）的最新形态学修订将该物种列为在悉尼盆地生物区域及周边广泛分布且常见，范围大致从纽卡斯尔地区以南250公里处的伊拉瓦拉，一直延伸到内陆的蓝山地区。该物种的形态变异性和毒液多样性似乎异常高，这引发了关于这些蜘蛛的物种概念和多样性的问题。在本研究中，我们结合分子系统发育学、分歧时间分析和形态学，确定悉尼漏斗网蜘蛛是一个由三个物种组成的复合体。“真正的”悉尼漏斗网蜘蛛Atrax robustus在悉尼大都市区相对广泛分布。第二个物种Atrax montanus（Rainbow，1914）在此重新确认，其分布与前者重叠，但主要出现在更南部和西部，第三个更大的物种Atrax christenseni sp. nov. 则在纽卡斯尔以北的一个小区域被发现。漏斗网蜘蛛的修订分类学可能对抗蛇毒血清生产和蜘蛛毒液的生化研究具有实际意义。尽管自20世纪80年代抗蛇毒血清研发以来未发生过人类死亡事件，但考虑到物种水平的生物学差异，悉尼漏斗网蜘蛛的抗蛇毒血清可能会得到优化。
