Megalepthyphantes nebulosus (Sundevall, 1830)

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

Megalepthyphantes nebulosus (Sundevall, 1830)

Material examined.

• 1 ♂ ( TNU 10180/2 ), Crimea, Sevastopol, nr Balaklava, Aya Cape Mt. Range, Kala-Fatlar Mt., Gekkonovaya Cave , 9. X. 2016, A. A. Nadolny leg.

Distribution.

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

Records from the Crimean caves.

Map (Fig. 17 B – pale blue circle). Gekkonovaya Cave of Aya Cape Mt. Range (present data).

Ecology.

Above the 55 th parallel northwards it is an exclusively synanthropic species ( Kovblyuk and Kastrygina 2015; Nentwig et al. 2024), but southwards it can be found in natural biotopes – under stones and in rock crevices ( Tyshchenko 1971). In Crimea, M. nebulosus is rare, recorded in Sevastopol and Feodosia ( Kovblyuk and Kastrygina 2015), and only once in the subterranean biotopes (present data). Also, this species was recorded as a troglophile in the Kristalnaya Cave in Ternopol region, Ukraine ( Evtushenko 2004; Zagorodniuk and Vargovitsh 2004). In the Crimean caves, the ecological confinement of M. nebulosus is not entirely clear, it is probably a subtroglophile.

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.