New widow spider record of Latrodectus dahli Levi (Araneae: Theridiidae) extends known range in Northern Saudi Arabia

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  Image Credit: iNaturalist Photo 400937400, (c) Kian, some rights reserved (CC BY), uploaded by Kian, https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/400937400 New widow spider record of Latrodectus dahli Levi (Araneae: Theridiidae) extends known range in Northern Saudi Arabia ABSTRACT Researchers have documented the first confirmed occurrence of Dahl’s widow spider ( Latrodectus dahli vn Saudi Arabia’s Ha’il Region, extending the species’ known range into the country’s north. The finding fills an important gap in the spider’s Middle Eastern distribution and highlights how even medically important species remain under-documented in parts of the Arabian Peninsula. L. dahli Levi is a medically significant widow spider that is found in North Africa, Cyprus, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the Middle East, Iran and Central Asia. Prior to our work, there had been no records of it in northern Saudi Arabia although it had been found in central regions of Saudi Arabia such as Al Duwadimi, Riyadh and ...

First records and DNA barcoding of Argiope trifasciata (Forsskål, 1775) (Araneae, Araneidae) in Greece

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First records and DNA barcoding of Argiope trifasciata (Forsskål, 1775) (Araneae, Araneidae) in Greece

Abstract
Argiope trifasciata is a nearly cosmopolitan orb-weaver whose presence in Europe has been documented only in recent decades. Here, we report the first records of the species from Greece, based on a collected voucher specimen from Rhodes, which was morphologically and genetically examined, and additional citizen-science observations from Rhodes, Kos, and Crete. The Rhodes sequence was identical to the Cyprus sequence across the 611-bp COI alignment, and the two sequences were recovered together within the strongly supported Old World-associated Clade. These records fill a distributional gap between the western and eastern Mediterranean, correspond to projections in GLM-based species distribution modelling and extend the documented range of A. trifasciata in the region. Given the possibility of both natural dispersal and human-assisted transport, we treat A. trifasciata in Greece as a cryptogenic, recently expanding species.

Kalaentzis K, Bauer T, Kaitetzidou E, BIOSCAN Collective WSI, Chatzaki M, Triantafyllidis A (2026) First records and DNA barcoding of Argiope trifasciata (Forsskål, 1775) (Araneae, Araneidae) in Greece. Check List 22(5): 778-787. https://doi.org/10.15560/22.5.778