Spiders seem to hang out in all kinds of places, from those that build trapdoors, to some that live in caves or even in your back garden. Now, six new species have been described after being discovered in a mountainous region of China. 

The six new spider species in the Pholcus phungiformes species group have been discovered in areas between the Yanshan-Taihang and Changbai Mountains. They are named Pholcus chaoyang, sp. nov., P. hebei, sp. nov., P. huludao, sp. nov., P. jinzhou, sp. nov., P. liaoning, sp. nov., and P. qin, sp. nov.

The Pholcus phungiformes species group is part of a diverse family called Pholcidae with a widespread distribution. It includes 21 species groups and 411 species. This family includes common spiders known as cellar spiders and carpenter spiders. The 125 species within the Pholcus phungiformes group live primarily in four mountain ranges in China or North Korea, with one species found on islands off the coast of Japan and Russia. 

All the new spider species were found on the “underside of overhang on rocky cliffs in mountainous areas,” write the authors in the paper. 

In 2024 a new area between the Yanshan-Taihang and Changbai Mountains was studied for the first time, resulting in the six new species. The species were identified as members of this group because of three main features, which include male mouthparts with protrosions, and a knob on the underside of the female’s hardened plate used in sperm transfer. 

The authors suggest that while they have explored the area between the Yanshan-Taihang and Changbai Mountains and found species to fill in this zoogeographical gap, there still remain unexplored areas that could hold more spider species. For example, they posit that North Korea could hold as many as 20-30 species, but the lack of experts in the region and difficulties for foreign experts traveling there present challenges to finding even more of them. 

The study is published in ZooKeys.