New faunistic and taxonomic notes on the Haplogyne and Cribellate spiders (Araneae: Dictynidae, Dysderidae, Eresidae, Filistatidae, Sicariidae) from three Balkan countries

Abstract

In this paper, we report for the first time two spider species for Albania, four for Bulgaria and two for Greece: Altella lucida (Simon, 1874) (Bulgaria), Eresus moravicus Rezác, 2008 (Bulgaria and Greece), Filistata insidiatrix (Forsskål, 1775) (Albania), Harpactea samuili Lazarov, 2006 (Greece), Loxosceles rufescens (Dufour, 1820) (Albania), Pritha parva Legittimo, Simeon, Di Pompeo et Kulczycki, 2017 (Bulgaria) and Pritha vestita (Simon, 1873) (Bulgaria). The recently described species P. parva is the first report for the Balkan Peninsula, while P. vestita is the first record for mainland Europe. Their congener Pritha nana (Simon, 1868) is removed from the Bulgarian checklist of spiders (misidentification). As a result of our report, the number of spider species increases to 571, 1049 and 1183 in Albania, Bulgaria and Greece, respectively.

Integrative taxonomy reveals first record of Loxosceles rufescens (Dufour, 1820) (Araneae, Sicariidae) in the Philippines

“…Overall, the examined morphological characters of the Philippine species conform with the present description of L. rufescens as presented in Lotz (2017) , Valdez-Mondragón et al (2018) , Zamani et al (2020) , and Naumova and Deltshev (2021) .…”

“…The spermatheca of Philippine specimens are short and rounded distally with reduced or absent spermathecal bilobation, similar to those from the Balkan Peninsula ( Naumova and Deltshev 2021 ), Mexico ( Valdez-Mondragón et al 2018 ) and from Hormozgan in Iran ( Zamani et al 2020 ), but slightly differs in the size of the inner receptacle lobe. It also closely resembles the Australian specimen recovered in the Iberian Clade by Duncan et al (2010) .…”

Venomous spiders of Albania –does an increase of temperature influence the toxicity of spider venom?

“…By comparison L. rufescens bites occurred in the Western Lowland including Sarandë, Fier, Lushnje, Berat, Tiranë ( Fig. 1 ) ( Hoxha, 2006 ; Kůrka et al, 2020 ; Laho and Puca, 2014 ; Marko et al, 2017 ; Naumova and Deltshev, 2021 ). Data on their distribution were also reported by S. Pavouk, pers.…”