The Mediterranean Recluse Spider Loxosceles rufescens (Dufour, 1820): a new invasive for Socotra Island (Yemen)
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SOCOTRA BIODIVERSITY RESEARCH AND NATURE CONSERVATION
The Mediterranean Recluse Spider Loxosceles rufescens (Dufour, 1820): a new invasive for Socotra Island (Yemen) Vladimír Hula1 · Jana Niedobová2 Received: 1 February 2020 / Accepted: 17 June 2020 © Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 2020
Abstract The presence of Loxosceles rufescens (Dufour, 1820), commonly known as the Mediterranean recluse spider, is recorded from Socotra Island (Yemen) for the first time. This originally circum-Mediterranean species is potentially harmful to humans, considering the strong cytotoxicity of the venom and the species often inhabiting human settlements. It has been shown that L. rufescens can easily be introduced to non-native areas with transported goods, and is hence an alien invasive species to nearly all other continents and many Islands. From the region, it was recorded from mainland Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. We conducted a wide survey and recorded the species across the entire Island of Socotra, in both natural and artificial habitats. Keywords Socotra archipelago · Biological invasion · Araneae · Loxosceles rufescens
1 Introduction Spiders of the genus Loxosceles Heineken & Lowe, 1832 (commonly known as recluse or violin spiders) are relatively well known due to the potential medical conditions caused by their envenomation, known as “loxoscelism”. It is a series of clinical symptoms including cutaneous lesions, which spread gravitationally from the spider bite. The lesions are characterized by necrotizing wounds that are dark blue-violet in colour and become indurated, leading to the formation of scar tissue (Chaim et al. 2011). The brown recluse, Loxosceles reclusa Gertsch & Mulaik, 1940, which is endemic to the United States remains as one of the better studied species of this genus (Swanson and Vetter 2005). This paper belongs to a Topical Collection “Twenty years of biodiversity research and nature conservation in the Socotra Archipelago” edited by Fabio Attorre and Kay Van Damme, conceived at the 18th Friends of Socotra Conference, 26–29 September, 2019, Orto Botanico di Palermo, Palermo, Italy. * Vladimír Hula [email protected] 1
Department of Forest Ecology, Mendel University, Zemědělská 3, 613 00 Brno, Czech Republic
Department of Forest Protection and Wildlife Management, Mendel University, Zemědělská 3, 613 00 Brno, Czech Republic
2
The family Sicariidae comprises some 169 species around the globe, which are mostly distributed in the tropics (WSC 2019). Loxosceles is one of three known genera of this family, and consists of 127 species. Most of them are distributed in America (98), while only 26 species are known in Africa, five in Canary Islands and three in Asia (WSC 2019). The only species with wide distributional range is Loxosceles rufescens (Dufour, 1820), commonly known as the Mediterranean recluse spider. This species has a natural range across the whole Mediterranean (Nentwig et al. 2019a; Massa et al. 2018) to Iran (Zamani and Rafinejad 2014). It is found in many temper
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