Pholcus phalangioides (Fuessling, 1775)

Pholcus phalangioides (Fuessling, 1775) View in CoL

Pholcus phalangioides (Fuessling, 1775): Charitonov 1947 a: 47; Charitonov 1947 b: 1; Birstein 1963: 128; Tyshchenko 1971: 23; Kovblyuk 2004 a: 238; Kovblyuk 2014: 44; Turbanov et al. 2016 b: 1283. View in CoL

Pholcus phalangoides [sic!] (Fuessling, 1775): Evtushenko 2004: 66, 68.

Pholcus phalangoidaes [sic!] (Fuessling, 1775): Zagorodniuk and Vargovitsh 2004: 207.

Material examined.

• 1 ♀ ( TNU 10193/1 ), Crimea, nr Sevastopol, Khomutovaya Gorge, Maksimova Datsha , abandoned aqueduct carved into an unnamed cave-spring, 11. III. 2014, I. S. Turbanov leg. • 1 ♂ ( TNU 10190/3 ), same cave, 23. V. 2015, A. A. Nadolny leg. • 1 ♂ ( TNU), Crimea, Bakhchisarai Distr., nr Khodzha-Sala Vil., steep southern slope of Baba-Dagh Plateau (= Mangup-Kale Gorodishche), Mangupskaya I (= MK- 1) Cave , 2. VI. 2021, I. S. Turbanov leg.

Distribution.

Cosmopolite ( Kovblyuk and Kastrygina 2015; Nentwig et al. 2024).

Records from the Crimean caves.

Map (Fig. 17 A View Figure 17 – pink circle). Small unnamed cave (=? Malaya Cave) in Nizhnie Limeny (now Goluboi Zaliv, Yalta) and abandoned aqueduct of Maksimova Datsha nr Sevastopol; Mangupskaya I (= MK- 1) Cave in Bakhchisarai Distr. ( Charitonov 1947 a; present data).

Ecology.

A troglophile and synanthropic species ( Mammola et al. 2018; Nentwig et al. 2024). Pholcus phalangioides usually is found in anthropogenic biotopes and less frequently in caves ( Huber 2011). In Crimea, this species is also mainly synanthropic ( Kovblyuk et al. 2016), except for few findings in caves ( Charitonov 1947 a; present data), which are somehow associated with human economic activity. In particular, in the abandoned aqueduct in Sevastopol, which was made by enlarging a cave spring, and where intensive agricultural and other economic activities were carried out in the second half of the 19 th and early 20 th centuries ( Chikin 2005). Small unnamed cave in Nizhnie Limeny ( Charitonov 1947 a) is another site from where P. phalangioides has been recorded. That site is situated on Koshka Mt. containing the ruins of a medieval Genoese fortification (shelter) from the 13–15 th centuries, Limena-Kale ( Myts 1991). Therefore, in Crimea, this species can be classified as a facultative synanthrope, established as a subtroglophile in suitable subterranean biotopes.