Page 2 - Araneus_angulatus_Clerck_1757

Fig. 1. Female
is quite unusual that such a conspicuous species has been overlooked
in Sicily where the arachnid fauna is quite well studied. The distribu-
tion in the Maltese islands is of particular interest as it was until now
only noted on an islet (Ħalfa Islet) with a distance of 70 meters away
from the main island of Gozo with an area of about 4750 m2 (AS
unpublished record). The species on this small, species-poor islet is
accompanied by at least seven other arachnids species (authors’
unpublished data): Euscorpius sicanus (Koch, 1837), Dysdera
crocata (C.L. Koch, 1838), Crytophora citricola (Forsskåal, 1775),
Argiope lobata (Pallas, 1772), Steatoda paykulliana (Sundevall,
1833) and 2 Salticidae spp.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Esther Sciberras and Romario
Sciberras for continuous assistance in field visits. They are also
indebted to Pietro Lo Casio for his useful comments and assistance
in literature search. Anna Šestáková must be acknowledged for her
much needed assistance through the spiders's forum (http://spinnen-
forum.de ) .The authors would also like to thank Alan Deidun for
making such trips possible.
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