Pholcus phalangioides (Fuessling, 1775)

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.

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 – 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.