Article: A revision of the fossil pirate spiders (Arachnida: Araneae: Mimetidae)

Fossil pirate spiders (Araneae: Mimetidae) are revised. The extinct genera Succinero Wunderlich, 2004a and Palaeoero Wunderlich, 2004a are interpreted as synonyms of the extant genus Ero C. L. Koch, 1836. We recognize here the following fossil species as valid: E. carboneana Petrunkevitch, 1942, E. longitarsus (Wunderlich, 2004a) comb. nov. and E. permunda Petrunkevitch, 1942, all from Baltic amber (Paleogene: Eocene), and E. rovnoensis (Wunderlich, 2004b) comb. nov. from Rovno (Ukranian) amber (Paleogene: Eocene). Mimetus bituberculatus Wunderlich, 1988 from Dominican Republic amber (Neogene: Miocene) can be assigned to a specifically American clade of Mimetus Hentz, 1932. Mimetus brevipes Wunderlich, 2004a from Baltic amber is synonymized with M. longipes Wunderlich, 2004a syn. nov. Of the other species (all Baltic amber), Ero aberrans Petrunkevitch, 1958 lacks taxonomically useful characters. Ero setulosa C. L. Koch and Berendt, 1854 is based on two non-conspecific, and non-mimetid, spiders. Mimetarchaea gintaras Eskov, 1992 is a subadult male mimetid. The putative oarcine 'missing link'Praeoarces exitus Wunderlich, 2004a is a subadult female mimetine. All four are treated here as nomina dubia. Other fossil mimetid species in the literature are nomina nuda.