A surprising number of spider species listed as valid on the European checklists and databases (e.g., van Helsdingen 2014, World Spider Catalog 2015, Nentwig et al. 2015 have never been reliably rediscovered after their initial description. Most of these are probably nomina dubia, unidentifiable on the basis of the original descriptions, but to conclusively determine the status of these species, a careful examination of each individual case is necessary (van Helsdingen 2004). The status of some of these species has been clarified as part of larger revisionary work or in isolated papers (e.g., Kronestedt 2000, van Helsdingen 2008. An extended discussion of dubious species described by Bösenberg was also provided by Braun (1982), but many cases still remain to be examined.The Working Group "Forum and Wiki" of the Arachnologische Gesellschaft (Lemke et al. 2014) has recently started an online project documenting the information available on suspected "phantom spiders", with an initial focus on species from Central Europe.
The present work provides two new spider records for the fauna of Pakistan: Plexippoides flavescens (O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1872) and Menemerus marginatus (Kroneberg, 1875). Both sexes of M. marginatus and the male of P. flavescens are illustrated. The distribution of both species and the current state of knowledge of the Pakistani jumping spiders are discussed. РЕЗЮМЕ. В настоящая работа приводятся две новые находки пауков для фауны Пакистана: Plexippoides flavescens (O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1872) и Menemerus marginatus (Kroneberg, 1875). Проиллюстрированы оба пола M. marginatus и самец P. flavescens. Кратко обсуждаются распространение обоих видов и уровень изученности пакистанских пауков-скакунчиков.
Two undescribed species of the African pholcid spider genus Quamtana have been found in German greenhouses and plant markets since 2012. Both species seem to have established stable populations. This genus has not been previously recorded from Europe, except for a fossil specimen in Eocene amber from the Paris Basin that was tentatively assigned to Quamtana and that is estimated to date from 53 million years ago. Since the actual geographic origins of the two species (probably South and/or tropical Africa) are unknown, we do not formally describe them.
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