Picking pearls from the Silk Road: Insights into the spider (Arachnida, Araneae) diversity in Georgia from the Caucasus Barcode of Life (CaBOL) project. Part III

The present study contains information about a small number of spiders collected between 2018 and 2023. The spiders were determined to species level and partially assisted by genetic barcoding of the COI gene. Among the resulting 33 species, 23 species and three genera, are recorded from Georgia for the first time, of which 11 are new records for the entire Caucasus. Of the 26 barcoded specimens representing 18 species, six species (Agroeca maculata L. Koch, 1879; Aituaria eriashvilii (Marusik, 1987); Evippa sjostedti Schenkel, 1936; Lathys cf. lehtineni Kovblyuk, Kastrygina & Omelko, 2014; Zelotes segrex (Simon, 1878); Lathys lehtineni Kovblyuk, Kastrygina & Omelko, 2014; Maculoncus obscurus Tanasevitch, Ponomarev & Chumachenko, 2016) are barcoded for the first time. In addition, 12 new regional records for 10 species are provided. The collecting information for each record is provided in detail, together with a discussion of the barcoding results and remarks, supported by 48 diagnostic drawings of 22 first-recorded species. A potential synonymy of Pelecopsis odontophora (Kulczyński, 1895) with P. parallela (Wider, 1834) and Bassaniodes loeffleri (Roewer, 1955) with B. pseudorectilineus (Wunderlich, 1995) is discussed

Picking pearls from the Silk Road: Insights into the spider (Arachnida, Araneae) diversity in Georgia from the Caucasus Barcode of Life (CaBOL) project. Part III

The present study contains information about a small number of spiders collected between 2018 and 2023. The spiders were determined to species level and partially assisted by genetic barcoding of the COI gene. Among the resulting 33 species, 23 species and three genera, are recorded from Georgia for the first time, of which 11 are new records for the entire Caucasus. Of the 26 barcoded specimens representing 18 species, six species (Agroeca maculata L. Koch, 1879; Aituaria eriashvilii (Marusik, 1987); Evippa sjostedti Schenkel, 1936; Lathys cf. lehtineni Kovblyuk, Kastrygina & Omelko, 2014; Zelotes segrex (Simon, 1878); Lathys lehtineni Kovblyuk, Kastrygina & Omelko, 2014; Maculoncus obscurus Tanasevitch, Ponomarev & Chumachenko, 2016) are barcoded for the first time. In addition, 12 new regional records for 10 species are provided. The collecting information for each record is provided in detail, together with a discussion of the barcoding results and remarks, supported by 48 diagnostic drawings of 22 first-recorded species. A potential synonymy of Pelecopsis odontophora (Kulczyński, 1895) with P. parallela (Wider, 1834) and Bassaniodes loeffleri (Roewer, 1955) with B. pseudorectilineus (Wunderlich, 1995) is discussed

Into the unknown: the first barcode-assisted checklist of Psocoptera (Insecta, Psocodea) of Georgia with a census on country species richness

This checklist reports 47 species of Psocoptera from 15 families and three suborders from Georgia, of which 31 species are recorded for the first time, increasing the known fauna of the country by more than 65%. Of these, 37 species have been barcoded, representing 210 Barcode Identification Numbers (BINs). An additional 14 species are expected to occur in Georgia but remain undiscovered, meaning that only ≈ 77% of the fauna is currently documented. Barcodes, comments on distributions, and images of voucher specimens are given followed by a map of the sampling sites