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 Author Bellvert, Adrià 0ABC3DFE-E982-47F5-A5DA-732688BCDEA9 Departament de Biologia Evolutiva, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals, Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Av. Diagonal, 643, 08028 Barcelona, Spain. & Institut de Recerca de la Biodiversitat (IRBio), Universitat de Barcelona (UB) Barcelona, Spain. abellvertba@gmail.com Author Dimitrov, Dragomir 37EC22F1-6348-4A61-B55F-3E74498AE5E9 Departament de Biologia Evolutiva, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals, Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Av. Diagonal, 643, 08028 Barcelona, Spain. & Institut de Recerca de la Biodiversitat (IRBio), Universitat de Barcelona (UB) Barcelona, Spain. & National Museum of Natural Sciences, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 1 Tsar Osvoboditel Blvd, 1000 Sofia, Bulgaria. dimitrov.drk@gmail.com Author Zamani, Alireza A21C0B82-E2D9-4402-9408-D6160843DAF4 Zoological Museum, Biodiversity Unit, FI- 20014 University of Turku, Finland. zamani.alireza5@gmail.com Author Arnedo, Miquel A. 0148CECC-0BCF-469F-8614-F4A447C26408 Departament de Biologia Evolutiva, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals, Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Av. Diagonal, 643, 08028 Barcelona, Spain. & Institut de Recerca de la Biodiversitat (IRBio), Universitat de Barcelona (UB) Barcelona, Spain. marnedo@gmail.com text European Journal of Taxonomy 2024 2024-02-14 921 210 210 235 https://europeanjournaloftaxonomy.eu/index.php/ejt/article/download/2429/10759 journal article 10.5852/ejt.2024.921.2429 2118-9773 10663874 02633F29-4CDF-4027-BEBF-07AD2F925B42 Genus Dysdera Latreille, 1804 Dysderella Dunin, 1992: 67 ( type species: Dysdera transcaspica Dunin & Fet, 1985 ), syn. nov. Fig. 2. Preferred maximum likelihood tree of Dysderoidea C.L. Koch, 1837. Species and clades are boxed according to taxonomic groupings or geographic regions. Node support results from analyses under alternative inference methods are summarized using pie charts on branches. Upperleft pie = Bayesian inference (BI; MrBayes), Upperright pie = Maximum Likelihood (ML; IQTree2), Lower pie = Parsimony (MP; TNT). Support levels are color coded as follows: black = node recovered with high support (PP> 0.95, ML ultrafast bootstrap support> 95, Parsimony jackknife> 80); gray = node recovered but support values below thresholds indicated before; white = node not recovered. GenBank accession numbers in Supp. file 1. 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 .