First report of Heriaeus buffoni (Araneae: Thomisidae) from the Canary Islands ; Erstnachweis von Heriaeus buffoni (Araneae: Thomisidae) für die Kanarischen Inseln

Abstract

Heriaeus buffoni (Audouin, 1826) is reported for the first time from the Canary Islands, where it was found on Lanzarote. This also represents the first record of the genus in the archipelago. All individuals were collected with pitfall traps installed in nitrophilous synanthropic shrub vegetation near urban areas. Species identification was based on male genitalia only as females were not sampled. A map including all known records from Lanzarote, drawings of the pedipalps and photographs of living and preserved specimens are presented. ; The authors are indebted to Laura Brito Fernández, Cristina Calero García, Malena García Díaz, Matías Hernández González, Alejandro Leira Molina, Daniel Maldonado Egusquiza and Patricia Morera Ferrer, partners of the "Arrecife: biociudad" project of the "Arrecife Avanza" agreement, for their help during the fieldwork. In addition, we would like to thank the Canarian Government for providing a sampling permit (No Ref. Expte. 2021/17012) that allowed us to carry out this survey. We are also grateful to Tobias Bauer for his help on a preliminary version of the manuscript and for kindly taking photos of the specimen. We wish to thank Sylvain Lecigne as well as an anonymous reviewer for their constructive comments that improved the quality of the manuscript. D.S. was funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación through an FPI PhD fellowship (PRE2018-083230) and M.Á.Z. was funded by the Arrecife local council through the program "Nuevas Oportunidades de Empleo NOE-COVID" promoted by the European Social Fund+ (ESF+). ; Peer reviewed