Artema ziaretana ( Roewer, 1960 ) Roewer, 1960

Huber, Bernhard A., 2009, Four new generic and 14 new specific synonymies in Pholcidae, and transfer of Pholcoides Roewer to Filistatidae (Araneae), Zootaxa 1970, pp. 64-68 : 67-68

Artema ziaretana ( Roewer, 1960) new combination

Pholciella ziaretana Roewer, 1960: 42 –43, figs. 13a–d.

Type material. 1 juvenile holotype, “Ziaret Ghourambar” (near Jalalabad), Afghanistan; under stones on hill, 5.i.1958, with original label “ Pholciella n. g., ziaretana n. sp., 1Ψ Typus A 436”, in Naturhistoriska Museet, Göteborg, Sweden, examined.

Justification of synonymy. The juvenile specimen shows all the characters typical for Artema : high globose abdomen, distinctive arrangement of large black marks on abdomen, large anterior median eyes, deep thoracic groove, large body size. The only similar genus in mainland Asia is Tibetia Zhang, Zhu & Song, 2006, a genus that itself may be a synonym of Artema . Artema is now composed of five nominal species, including two from Afghanistan ( A. magna Roewer, 1960 and A. ziaretana ), but the genus has never been revised and except for the cosmopolitan A. atlantica Walckenaer , all species are very poorly known.

Pholcoides Roewer 1960 , Filistatidae , new family assignment

Pholcoides Roewer, 1960: 40 –41, monotypic; type species: P. afghana Roewer, 1960 .