The genus Rhomphaea (Araneae: Theridiidae) from Japan, with notes on the subfamily Argyrodinae

Three theridiid genera, Rhomphaea L. Koch 1872, Ariamnes Thorell 1869 and Spheropistha Yaginuma 1957, are resurrected, and they are treated under a subfamily together with the genus Argyrodes. Conopisthinae Archer 1950 is newly synonymized with Argyrodinae Simon 1894. Keys to the genera of Argyrodinae and the species of Rhomphaea are given. In the genus Rhomphaea four species are recorded from Japan. Of these, two species, R. hyrcana (Logunov & Marusik 1990) and R. labiata (Zhu & Song 1991), are newly transferred from Argyrodes, and the former is recorded from Japan for the first time. A new species, R. tanikawai, is described from Iriomote Island, the Nansei Islands. Three species of Spheropistha, S. miyashitai (Tanikawa 1998) described from Japan, S. nigroris (Yoshida et al. 2000) and S. orbita (Zhu 1998) described from China, are newly transferred from Argyrodes. Argyrodes gansuensis Zhu 1998 described from China is newly synonymized with A. fur (Bosenberg & Strand 1906). One species name, Argyrodes silvicola S. Saito 1934, is treated as nomen dubium. A list of the Japanese species of the subfamily Argyrodinae is given.