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The tropical diplurid spider subfamily Ischnothelinae is revised for the first time. The monophyly of this subfamily is supported by six putative synapomorphies: an elongate cymbial apophysis, two rows of cheliceral teeth, a procurved transverse fovea, collariform trichobothrial bases, fused silk spigots, and long, tapering, pseudosegmented terminal posterior lateral spinneret articles. Five genera are recognized: Ischnothele Ausserer (with 11 species in South America, Central America, and the Antilles), Andethele, new genus (with 3 species in the Andes Mountains of Peru), Lathrothele Benoit (with 4 species in Africa), Indothele, new genus (with 4 species in India and Sri Lanka), and Thelechoris Karsch (with 2 species in Africa and Madagascar).
Phylogenies (based on cladistic analyses using two different sets of outgroups), biogeographic hypotheses, a key, diagnoses, descriptions, tables of quantitative character values, illustrations, analyses of variation, natural history information, locality records, and distribution maps are presented for the 24 recognized species. The cladistic analyses provide strong support for the monophyly of the Old World branch of the subfamily, the genera Andethele and Thelechoris, and the Greater Antillean and South American (goloboffi) clades of Ischnothele, and weaker or ambiguous support for the monophyly of Ischnothele, Lathrothele, and Indothele. Ten species are newly described: Ischnothele jeremie, I. garcia, I. huambisa, and I. goloboffi; Andethele lucma, A. huanca, and A. tarma; Indothele lanka, I. rothi, and I. mala. Fourteen specific names are newly synonymized: Ischnothele ecuadorensis Schmidt with Ischnothele digitata (O.P.-Cambridge); Entomothele pusilla Simon, Thelechoris zebrina Simon, Thelechoris funesta Fischel, Thelechoris obtusa Fischel, and Ischnothele sexpunctata Bücherl, da Costa, and Lucas with Ischnothele caudata Ausserer; Ischnothele siemensi F.O.P.-Cambridge with Ischnothele guianensis (Walckenaer); Ischnothele indigens Vellard, Ischnothele zorodes Mello-Leitão, Ischnothele campestris Schiapelli and Gerschman, Ischnothele affinis Schiapelli and Gerschman, and Ischnothele cranwelli Gerschman and Schiapelli with Ischnothele annulata Tullgren; Lathrothele marmoratus Benoit with Lathrothele grabensis Benoit; and Thelechoris karschi Bösenberg and Lenz with Thelechoris striatipes (Simon).
Several species previously placed in ischnotheline genera are not ischnothelines: Ischnothele annectens (Bertkau), Ischnothele simplicata Saito, Ischnothele strandi Spassky, Ischnothele lineata (Karsch), Ischnothele indicola Tikader, and Thelechoris australis Purcell. Evidence is presented that suggests that Ischnothele longicauda and Lathrothele grabensis may each consist of more than one species and that Thelechoris rutenbergi and T. striatipes may be conspecific.
