Description of New Ground Spider Species (Gnaphosidae, Araneae) from Mainland Greece

Abstract

In the course of an extensive sampling of ground spiders in mainland Greece, six new species, namely, Civizelotes akmon n.sp., Drassyllus centrohellenicus n.sp., Drassyllus covid n.sp., Drassyllus dadianus n.sp., Phaeocedus similaris n.sp., and Zeloteshistio n.sp., all belonging to the family Gnaphosidae Banks, 1892, were identified and are described. Furthermore, taxonomic comments on Civizelotes gracilis (Canestrini, 1868) and its relationship with C. pygmaeus (Miller, 1943), Drassyllus dadia Komnenov & Chatzaki, 2016, as well as on Zelotes olympi (Kulczyński, 1903) and its relationship with Z. talpinus (L. Koch, 1872) are provided. Drassodes omalosis Roewer, 1928 is removed from the synonymy of D. unicolor (O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1872) and the species is revalidated.

Keywords

• new species
• taxonomy
• Mediterranean