Contribution to the distribution of spiders with significant medical importance (Araneae: Loxosceles and Latrodectus) in Iran, with a new record for the country

Document Type : Research articles

Authors

• Alireza Zamani ¹
• Omid Mirshamsi ²
• Alireza Savoji ³
• Mehran Shahi ⁴

¹ Department of Animal Biology, School of Biology and Centre of Excellence in Phylogeny of Living Organisms, College of Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

² Ferdowsi UNiversity of Mashhad

³ Ministry of Education and Training, Zone 6, Tehran, Iran

⁴ niversity of Medical Sciences, Bandar Abbas, Hormozgan, Iran

10.22067/ijab.v10i1.36892

Abstract

A faunistic review is given on the Iranian medically important spiders of two genera Loxosceles and Latrodectus. Latrodectus cinctus Blackwall, 1865 is reported for the first time from Iran (and for the second time from Asia) and is replaced with the previous erroneous reports of L. hasseltii Thorell, 1870. The following species are reported for the first time from the listed provinces: Loxosceles rufescens (Dufour, 1820) (Fars and Hormozgan Provinces), Latrodectus dahli Levi, 1959 (Hormozgan Province), L. pallidus O.P.-Cambridge, 1872 (Alborz and Semnan Provinces) and L. tredecimguttatus (Rossi,1790) (Alborz, Qom, Semnan and Tehran Provinces). These data, together with L. geometricus C.L. Koch, 1841, already recorded from Khorasan-e-Razavi Province, raise the number of Latrodectus species present in Iran to five.

Keywords

• cytotoxicity
• envenomation
• fauna
• neurotoxicity
• recluse spider
• widow spider

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