Aituaria pontica (Spassky, 1932)

Nadolny, Anton A. & Turbanov, Ilya S., 2025, A review of cave spiders (Arachnida, Araneae) of the Crimean Mountains, with descriptions of two new species, ZooKeys 1230, pp. 37-80 : 37-80

publication ID	https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1230.137029
publication LSID	lsid:zoobank.org:pub:FAF5D699-E6F2-4B4C-92E1-4081187E90DD
DOI	https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14976110
persistent identifier	https://treatment.plazi.org/id/1A52DEA6-6BCB-5F88-8C7E-AEBD8F44FE56
treatment provided by	ZooKeys by Pensoft
scientific name	Aituaria pontica (Spassky, 1932)
status

Treatment

Aituaria pontica (Spassky, 1932) View in CoL

Fig. 2 A View Figure 2

Aituaria pontica (Spassky, 1932): Nadolny and Turbanov 2014: 569; Kovblyuk and Kastrygina 2015: 42; Turbanov et al. 2016 b: 1284; Esyunin 2017: 243; Turbanov and Nadolny 2017: 114–115. View in CoL

Material examined.

• 2 ♂♂, 1 ♀, 5 juv. ( TNU), Crimea, nr Sevastopol, Khomutovaya Gorge, Maksimova Datsha , abandoned aqueduct carved into an unnamed cave-spring, 11. III. 2014, I. S. Turbanov leg.

Distribution.

It is found in natural habitats in Krasnodar Territory, Russia. Also, reported from Ukraine and Russia (the Urals) as a synanthropic species ( Nadolny and Turbanov 2014; Esyunin 2017).

Records from the Crimean caves.

Map (Fig. 17 B View Figure 17 – grey circle). Abandoned aqueduct carved into an unnamed cave-spring of Maksimova Datsha nr Sevastopol ( Nadolny and Turbanov 2014).

Ecology.

A troglophile and synanthropic species ( Esyunin 2017). In Crimea, the species has been found only in an abandoned aqueduct in Sevastopol, which was made by enlarging a cave spring ( Nadolny and Turbanov 2014). Maksimova Datsha was the site with intensive agricultural and other economic activities carried out in the second half of the 19 th and early 20 th centuries, where ornamental / cultivated plants were introduced mainly from the west Caucasus ( Chikin 2005). In our opinion, this was a pathway for spreading alien species to Crimea, including A. pontica . Therefore, in Crimea this species is an accidentally introduced facultative synanthrope, locally established in suitable subterranean biotope as a subtroglophile.

References

Figures

Figure 17. Distributions of cave-dwelling spiders in Crimea (including data from references and this work): A Tegenaria lapicidinarum (purple circle), T. parietina (blue circle), T. taurica (orange circle), Amaurobius erberi (yellow circle), Alopecosa farinosa (grey circle), Pholcus phalangioides (pink circle), Meta bourneti (red circle), Metellina segmentata (pale blue circle), M. merianae (green circle), Steatoda triangulosa (white circle) B Bisetifer gruzin (blue circle), B. tactus sp. nov. (purple circle), Caviphantes dobrogicus (green circle), Lepthyphantes leprosus (red circle), Megalepthyphantes nebulosus (pale blue circle), M. pseudocollinus (white circle), Palliduphantes khobarum (orange circle), ? Tenuiphantes zimmermanni (pink circle), Troglohyphantes exspectatus sp. nov. (yellow circle), Aituaria pontica (grey circle), A. borutzkyi (black circle). The numbering of the caves is common for both maps: 1 – in unnamed cave near the city of Bakhchisarai; 2 – Mangupskaya I (= MK- 1) Cave; 3 – abandoned aqueduct carved into an unnamed cave-spring in area of the Maksimova Datsha; 4 – Asketi I Cave; 5 – Kay-Kobasy Cave; 6 – Izumrudnaya Сave; 7 – Gekkonovaya Cave; 8 – Gnomov Cave; 9 – Tshernoretshenskaya Cave; 10 – Azis-Koba (= Kara-Koba) Cave; 11 – Mamut-Tshokrak Cave; 12 – Baidar-Tshokrak Cave; 13 – unnamed cave on northeastern slope of Mt. Kilse-Burun; 14 – Skelskaya Cave; 15 – Rodnikovskaya Cave; 16 – Koryta (= Kuznetsova) Cave; 17 – Zemlyanitshnaya Cave; 18 – Kristalnaya (= Maksimovitcha) Cave; 19 – Druzhba Cave; 20 – unnamed cave (= ? Malaya Cave) in Nizhnie Limeny (now Goluboi Zaliv); 21 – Daniltsha-Koba Cave; 22 – Ayu-Teshik Cave; 23 – Villyaburunskaya Cave; 24 – Troizkogo (= Kharkovskaya, ZUG) Сave; 25 – Avantyura Cave; 26 – Kaply-Kayanskaya (= Khaplu-Khoba) Cave; 27 – Ayu-Koba Cave; 28 – grotto in Massandra; 29 – Binbash-Koba Cave; 30 – Paskhalnaya Cave; 31 – Alushtinskaya Cave; 32 – Kizil-Koba (= Krasnaya) Cave; 33 – Sliyanie Cave; 34 – Vostotshny Potok Cave; 35 – Partizanskaya Cave; 36 – grotto on Mt. Yuznaya Demerdzhi; 37 – Tisovaya Cave; 38 – Karani-Koba Cave; 39 – Tuakskaya (= Ful-Koba) Cave; 40 – Tavrida Cave.

Abbreviations

TNU	National Taiwan Normal University

Copyright notice

No known copyright restrictions apply. See Agosti, D., Egloff, W., 2009. Taxonomic information exchange and copyright: the Plazi approach. BMC Research Notes 2009, 2:53 for further explanation.

Taxonomy

Kingdom	Animalia
Phylum	Arthropoda
Class	Arachnida
Order	Araneae
Family	Nesticidae
Genus	Aituaria