Genetic-structuring
Guides
Hypochilus pococki
Pocock's lampshade-web spider
Hypochilus pococki is a relictual lampshade spider endemic to the southern Appalachian Mountains. It belongs to a paleoendemic genus distributed disjunctly across three montane regions in North America. The species exhibits extreme genetic divergence over small geographic distances, with five identified mitochondrial haplogroups, yet shows striking morphological stasis in male reproductive structures. As a microhabitat specialist, it has extremely low dispersal ability, leading to pronounced population genetic structuring.