Distributional Notes on Three Wolf Spider Species (Araneae: Lycosidae) Recorded for the First Time in Diyala Province, Iraq

Posted by
  Distributional Notes on Three Wolf Spider Species (Araneae: Lycosidae) Recorded for the First Time in Diyala Province, Iraq Abstract This study presents new distributional data for three wolf spider species (Araneae: Lycosidae) from Diyala Province in eastern Iraq. Specimens were gathered from different districts and habitats between July 2025 and June 2026. The species Arctosa tbilisiensis Mcheidze, 1946, Lycosa piochardi Simon, 1876, and Wadicosa fidelis (O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1872) are recorded for the first time in Diyala, extending their known ranges within Iraq. The paper describes key diagnostic morphological features and includes information about the examined specimens and their local distributions. These findings improve knowledge of the distribution of Iraqi Lycosidae and reveal that Diyala Province, despite its habitat variety, remains insufficiently studied. The records serve as a valuable baseline for future taxonomic, faunistic, and ecological research on spiders i...

Two new species of burrowing scorpions Urodacus (Scorpiones: Urodacidae) from the Pilbara region of Western Australia with identical external morphology

Posted by

 

Two new species of burrowing scorpions Urodacus (Scorpiones: Urodacidae) from the Pilbara region of Western Australia with identical external morphology


Abstract

Two new species of urodacid scorpions are described from the Pilbara region in Western Australia, where they are both patchily distributed along creek lines in the northeast of the region. Urodacus uncinus sp. nov. and Urodacus lunatus sp. nov. are indistinguishable based on external morphology: adults are medium-sized, yellow burrowing scorpions with remarkable sexual dimorphism in the telson, in which males have a uniquely swollen vesicle and an aculeus that is more strongly curved than other known species of Urodacus. The species are superficially similar to U. similis L.E. Koch, 1977 and U. yaschenkoi Birula, 1903 in the morphology of the first four metasomal segments, which are extremely short and not much longer than high. The two new species can only be discerned from each other based on the morphology of their hemispermatophores, which highlights the extremely conserved morphology of species in the genus and suggests that many new species await description with careful examination of their genitalia.

ZO23018  Accepted 05 October 2023