First fossil Molinaranea Mello-Leitão, 1940 (Araneae: Araneidae), from middle Miocene Dominican amber, with a phylogenetic and palaeobiogeographical analysis of the genus ERIN E. SAUPE 1 *, PAUL A. SELDEN 1,2 and DAVID PENNEY 3 1 Paleontological Institute, University of Kansas, Lindley Hall, 1475 Jayhawk Boulevard, Lawrence, Kansas 66045, USA 2 Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK 3 Faculty of Life Sciences, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, UK Received 5 November 2008; accepted for publication 25 February 2009 The first fossil Molinaranea is described, from middle Miocene Dominican amber. This record extends the known range of the genus back 16 million years; it also extends the geographical range of the genus through time, with extant species known only from Chile, Argentina, the Falkland Islands, and Juan Fernandez Island. A parsimony- based phylogenetic analysis was performed, which indicates that the fossil species, Molinaranea mitnickii sp. nov., is nested with Molinaranea magellanica Walckenaer, 1847 and Molinaranea clymene Nicolet, 1849. A modified Brooks parsimony analysis was conducted in order to examine the biogeography and origins of the fossil species in the Dominican Republic; the analysis suggests that M. mitnickii sp. nov. arrived in Hispaniola from South America as a result of a chance dispersal event. © 2010 The Linnean Society of London, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2010, 158, 711–725. doi: 10.1111/j.1096-3642.2009.00581.x ADDITIONAL KEYWORDS: Caribbean – disjunct distribution – South America. INTRODUCTION Amber from the Dominican Republic has been known to the Western world since the second voyage of Christopher Columbus to the West Indies (Sanderson & Farr, 1960), but its inclusions were not examined for at least another four centuries. Since then, exten- sive study of Dominican amber inclusions has provided insight into the diversity of life and palaeoecology at, and spanning, the time of amber extrusion (e.g. Perez-Gelabert, 2008). The resin was probably deposited in a single sedimentary basin during the early to middle Miocene (16–19 Mya), although the exact age is still a matter of debate (Iturralde-Vinent, 2001; see Poinar & Poinar, 1999 for an alternative view). Much of the amber comes from the northern Dominican Republic in the La Toca Formation, a 300 m thick rock sequence characterized by siltstone and lignite lenses. Dominican amber was produced by the extinct tree Hymenaea protera Poinar, 1991, a member of the Fabaceae. The first Dominican amber spider was described by Ono (1981) and placed in the family Thomisidae Sun- devall, 1833. There are now around 170 fossil spider species described from Dominican amber, most of which were described by Wunderlich (1988). Wunder- lich (1988) was the first to describe spiders from Dominican amber belonging to the family Araneidae Simon, 1895. The Araneidae are ecribellate, entel- egyne spiders with eight eyes in two subequal rows (Jocqué & Dippenaar-Schoeman, 2007). Here we describe a new araneid species from Dominican amber. It represents the first fossil record of Moli- naranea Mello-Leitão, 1940 and extends the known range of the genus back 16 million years. The pres- ence of this genus in the Dominican Republic in the *Corresponding author. E-mail: eesaupe@ku.edu Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2010, 158, 711–725. With 6 figures © 2010 The Linnean Society of London, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2010, 158, 711–725 711