Dysdera Latreille, 1804

Bellvert, Adrià, Dimitrov, Dragomir, Zamani, Alireza & Arnedo, Miquel A., 2024, Integrating museum collections and molecules reveals genus-level synonymy and new species in red devil spiders (Araneae, Dysderidae) from the Middle East and Central Asia, European Journal of Taxonomy 921 (210), pp. 210-235 : 214-216

Genus Dysdera Latreille, 1804

Dysderella Dunin, 1992: 67

(type species: Dysdera transcaspica Dunin & Fet, 1985 ), syn. nov.

Remarks

Dunin (1992) described the genus Dysderella and transferred the species Dysdera caspica and Dysdera transcaspica Dunin & Fet, 1985 to it. He designated D. transcaspica as the type species of this genus. However, he did not explicitly transfer it as a new combination, nor did he provide diagnostic differences to distinguish Dysderella from Dysdera . Zamani et al. (2023a) diagnosed and redescribed the genus Dysderella and described one more species, namely D. elburzica . The diagnosis of the genus they proposed, in our opinion, is not correct. According to the authors, it differs from Dysdera by the smaller size (i.e., carapace <2.1 mm vs> 4 mm) and the spineless legs I and II. We think, the size is not a reliable diagnostic character for Dysderidae . There are some small-sized species of Dysdera , like D. zonsteini Dimitrov, 2021 with size of the carapace 1.65 mm. The spineless legs I and II are typical for the Dysdera longirostris species group ( Deeleman-Reinhold & Deeleman 1988) and this character does not separate the two genera either. The molecular analysis shows that D. caspica belongs to the longirostris group of Dysdera (sensu Deeleman-Reinhold & Deeleman 1988) . We could not sequence D. transcaspica and D. elburzica , but due to their high morphological resemblance to D. caspica , they should also fall in this group. Additionally, the three species share morphological features with Dysdera , such as scopulae on the posterior metatarsi, claw tufts on all tarsi, and a notched anterior edge of the labium. They also share the spineless legs I and II with D. longirostris species group which further supports the results from the molecular analyses. Thus, we propose to transfer the three of them back to Dysdera and consider Dysderella as a junior synonym of Dysdera .