Revisiting the taxonomy of the rare and tiny comb-footed spider

. Carniella brignolii Thaler & Steinberger, 1 988 was first described based on a male from Austria and still belongs to the rare, scarcely studied species. Based on material from Germany and Switzerland the hitherto unknown female now can be assigned and presented. In this context a new synonymy is also proposed:The cave-dwelling, troglomorphic C. mihaili (Georgescu, 1 989) from Romania, originally established as new genus Marianana, is syno-nymised with C. brignolii.

Females are less conspicuous.All representatives are small-sized, with a body length of approximately 1 mm.According to their dwarfish appearance and their hidden subterranean life, records are rare and the state of knowledge scanty.
Here we present new taxonomic amendments for the type species C. brignolii from Europe, including the description of the female based on material from Germany and Switzerland and a new synonymy, which reveals that the female was already known under another species name.A male with an uninflated genital organ previously recorded by Hänggi & Stäub li (2012) allows synonymisation with C. mihaili.

Material and methods
Specimens were first examined and arranged using a Leica Wild M8 stereoscopic microscope.Male and female genitalia were dissected and studied as temporary mounts by submerging them in glycerine on half-covered, hollow slides under a Wild M20 compound microscope equipped with a drawing tube and micrometer eyepiece.Owing to the scarcity of the material legs were not removed and instead measurements had to be taken from leg drawings from the entire specimens placed on glycerine slides.As a consequence, some of the limbs could not be oriented exactly horizontal to the optical axis of the microscope, as if they were separated from the body.

C. b.\ Hänggi 8c
Carniella brignolii , the type species of the genus Carniella Thaler 8c Steinberger, 1988, was so far known only from the male, at least nominally.Tie corresponding female was described almost at the same time by Georgescu (1989) as new genus Marianana and new species M. mihaili ; see synonymy list.
Epigynum/vulva (Figs. 9, 11, 13): Epigynal cavity is a rounded, 0.1 mm wide, well outlined field, which is clearly divided along the midiine by a longitudinal ridge.Copulatory orifices not clearly traceable.Copulatory ducts rather short, presumably starting at midiine, running forwards at short distance and then backwards, entering at the anterior region of the receptacula seminis.Recurring part of ducts sclerotised.Receptacula seminis globular, at side margins of epigynal cavity.(9, 10, 13) and dorsal view (11, 12).In Fig. 13 the epigynum was drawn from the entire female without being dissected.Scale lines: 0.1 mm.The excellent and highly accurate descriptions of Georgescu (1989) of the female and Nae (2012) of the male allow synonymisation of C. mihaili based on the literature.Nae (2012) already indicated noticeable similarities with C. brignolii regarding the male palp, but at that time only males with fully inflated palps were known and illustrated (figures see Thaler 8c Steinberger 1988).In the cave-dwelling males from Romania the palpal membranes were not expanded and thus the obvious protrusion of the basal haemotodocha, 'typicar for C. brignolii , was hidden (abbreviated as "V" in Thaler 8c Steinberger 1988).A male with one uninflated genital organ (Figs.5-7), previously recorded by Hänggi 8c Stäubli (2012), now strcngthens the synonymy.
The following characters argue for the synonymy suggested herein.In the male palp, the basal haematodocha ends as a marked, sclerotised apophysis, which largely protrudes beyond the bulbus in the expanded palp ("V" in Thaler 8c Steinberger 1988 and Nae 2012).The cymbium shows distally a typical recess (Fig. 8; tip of cymbium unfortunately broken in the palp presented herc, see Fig. 6).The embolus is complex with a distal embolus spiral and several small, sclerotised projections as well as a larger hyaline one (abbreviated as TA in Thaler 8c Steinberger 1988 and EB in Nae 2012).The females agree in the rounded shape of the epigynal cavity with a clear septum, in the course of the copulatory ducts and the position of the receptacula (see Georgescu 1989;and Figs. 9, 13 vs. 10 and 11 vs. 12).Clypeal modification, shape of the Sternum and carapace, size parameters and cheliceral dentation are likewise in accordance.
There still remains the problem of eye reduction.In the Romanian specimens from Movile Cave the median eyes are completely reduced.Reduction or loss of eyes is regarded as being among the morphological adaptations to subterranean and cave life (Rüzicka 1999, 2009, Rüzicka et al. 2013).A wide ränge of Variation in eye size is known also for other soil living spiders, e.g. in the genus Porrhomma (see Rüzicka 2009, Rüzicka et al. 2013).Therefore, it is suggested that this character is not appropriate for species discrimination in the particular case of Carniella brignolii and C. mihaili , as no other noticeable differences exist.