Maria Naumova

Bulgarian Academy of Sciences | BAS · Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research

Kosovo is a small landlocked country on the Western Balkans and the youngest country in Europe. In this paper, we report three alien spider species from Kosovo for the first time: Ostearius melanopygius, Parasteatoda tepidariorum and Spermophora senoculata. In addition, we report new records for Pholcus phalangioides for the region. Our investigati...

Zygentoma is a small ancient order of primitive hexapods with over 500 described species, distributed worldwide. The original data about Bulgarian Zygentoma is scarce and refers to only four species: Atelura montana (Nicoletiidae), Coletina bulgarica (Nicoletiidae) (described from Bulgaria and known only from its first description), Ctenolepisma li...

Bulgaria is one of the smaller European countries, but it takes the leading place in faunal diversity, including cosmopolitan animal species and many Bulgarian and Balkan endemics. It is known that thermophilic and xerophilic Mediterranean animal species are found in the country's southern regions and along the Black Sea coast, and in the northern...

New taxonomic data and distribution records on liocranid spiders in the West Palaearctic are provided. Nine species of Mesiotelus Simon, 1897 are described as new to science: M. alanyensis Zamani, Fomichev, Kaya & Marusik, sp. nov. (female; Türkiye), M. bosmansi Zamani, Fomichev & Marusik, sp. nov. (female; Türkiye), M. confusus Zamani, Fomichev, N...

Material belonging to a small collection of Moroccan arachnids housed in the Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences was examined and the results are presented here. A total of 28 species belonging to 16 families from three orders of arachnids were provided, as follows: Araneae (16 species, 12 families)...

Since Kosovo is the least explored territory in the Balkan Peninsula when it comes to the study of spider fauna, with large, untouched areas, we aim to explore it in detail. From Bjeshkët e Nemuna Mountains only 15 species have been reported. We collected and identified 323 spider specimens (88♂♂, 235♀♀) from April 2018 to August 2021 at 20 sites i...

More than a hundred years after its description in 1905, the wolf spider Pardosa consimilis Nosek, 1905 was known solely from the original description of a single female, the holotype. In the last decade there were reports of the species from Bulgaria. Several reports followed with possible records of the yet-unknown males but they were not describ...

The praying mantis Ameles spallanzania (Rossi, 1792) is reported for the first time from Bulgaria, as well as for the Black Sea Region. New data on the current distribution in Bulgaria of an alien mantis species, Hierodula tenuidentata Saussure, 1869, is also presented.

In this paper, we present new faunistic data of the spider fauna from the Sharr Mountains (Kosovo), one of the least investigated areas in the Balkans. Previously only 27 species of spiders were known from the Kosovo part of the Sharr Mountains but with this investigation, the number has increased to 74. Pictures of rare and interesting species are...

The lamenting grasshopper Eypre po c ne m is plo rans plo rans (Charpentier, 1825) is first reported from Bulgaria with at least four established locations in the Thracian lowland (Plovdiv city; between Katunitsa and Yagodovo village, on the territory of Yagodovo village and north of it), along the valleys of the rivers Maritsa and Chaya. A total o...

Although Plovdiv is the second largest city in Bulgaria and on its territory, there are many natural habitats of high conservation importance, there is still almost no data on the species composition of the arachnid fauna. Our study is the first attempt to summarize available published and to provide original data about three orders of arachnids. T...

Two rare and interesting spider species (Gnaphosa mongolica Simon, 1895 and Haplodrassus bohemicus Miller & Buchar, 1977) were found during intensive research into the Pannonic sand steppes in Slovakia and represent new records for the country. Numerous specimens of both species were collected between the villages Radvaň nad Dunajom and Marcelová i...

Two new species, Zodarion emilijae sp. n. (♂♀) from North Macedonia and Z. weissi sp. n. (♂♀) from Bulgaria are described and illustrated, and new taxonomic and faunistic data for six species, namely Z. blagoevi Bosmans, 2009, Z. epirense Brignoli, 1984, Z. konradi Bosmans, 2009, Z. rubidum Simon, 1914, Z. scutatum Wunderlich, 1980 and Z. zorba Bos...

National Park “Bjeshkët e Nemuna”, with its position in the north-western part of the country, is part of the mountainous ones of the same name (or known as the Albanian Alps), which also extend to the three neighboring states, in R. Kosovo, R. Albania and R. Montenegro. In Kosovo this park lies in the municipalities of Istog, Peja, Deçan, Junik an...

The Republic of Kosovo is the territory with the least known spider fauna within the Balkans. The present list of spiders is based on all published records available to the authors and also includes original unpublished data. The checklist comprises only 159 species belonging to 29 families and 108 genera. This low number is due to different reason...

The spotted orb-weaver spider Neoscona byzanthina was described from the south-eastern point of the Balkan Peninsula – the town Istanbul (Constantinople) in Turkey by Pavesi (1876) and herein is reported from Albania, Bulgaria, Kosovo and North Macedonia for the first time. Its taxonomy, ecology and general distribution are summarized and discussed...

This study is a part of an ongoing comprehensive inventory of Bulgarian spiders. A total of fifty spider species belonging to thirteen families are reported for the first time from Bulgaria. Four species are rejected from the Bulgarian spider checklist due to misidentification: Callilepis concolor Simon, 1914, Centromerus capucinus (Simon, 1884), H...

The camel-spider Galeodes graecus C. L. Koch, 1842, is poorly known and still insufficiently studied in taxonomic, faunistic and ecological aspects. This study represents 59 new records of this species from Bulgaria (57) and North Macedonia (2). The taxonomic characters distinguishing this species from its most similar congeners are discussed and i...

The spotted orb-weaver spider Neoscona byzanthina was described from the south-eastern point of the Balkan Peninsula – the town Istanbul (Constantinople) in Turkey by Pavesi (1876) and herein is reported from Albania, Bulgaria, Kosovo, and North Macedonia for the first time. Its taxonomy, ecology, and general distribution are summarized and discuss...

Abstract. The Republic of Kosovo is the territory with the least known spider fauna within the Balkans. The present list of spiders is based on all published records available to the authors and also includes original data which is in press or unpublished yet. The checklist comprises only 149 species belonging to 26 families and 98 genera. This low...

A small faunistic survey has been carried out in the Bulgarian part of Sakar Mountain. As a result, the list of species known from the studied region increased from 17 to 149. Eleven species are new to the Bulgarian fauna, while 6 of them are also reported for the first time from the Balkan Peninsula. Zelotes boluensis Wunderlich, 2011 is reported...

In this paper, we report for the first time two spider species for Albania, four for Bulgaria and two for Greece: Altella lucida (Simon, 1874) (Bulgaria), Eresus moravicus Rezác, 2008 (Bulgaria and Greece), Filistata insidiatrix (Forsskål, 1775) (Albania), Harpactea samuili Lazarov, 2006 (Greece), Loxosceles rufescens (Dufour, 1820) (Albania), Prit...

The subterranean fauna of both natural and artificial caves in Albania remains poorly studied. Cave colonisation can be clarified by investigating the same process in artificial underground sites. The existence of such a process can be judged by the composition of specific vertebrate and invertebrate species in every site. The biospeleological stud...

The aim of this paper is to perform a biocoenological analysis of spiders and to follow their distribution along an altitudinal gradient on Kozuf Mountain. The research area extends from the foothill to the highest parts of the mountain (89-2080 m a.s.l.), covering 17 localities, characterized by a broad spectrum of habitats. The material was colle...

Pitfall traps are the most commonly used method for capturing spiders. Other inexpensive methods such as ramp traps and arboreal traps are also used. Ramp traps are used mostly in situations where you cannot or do not wish to disturb the soil, while arboreal traps are used to determine the structure of spider assemblages living on tree trunks and i...

Forty-five species of arachnids have been collected from 14 localities in Albania. These belong to four orders: Araneae (38 species of 19 families), Opiliones (2 species of 2 families), Pseudoscorpiones (2 species of 2 families) and Scorpiones (3 species of 2 families). From them, two new spider species are described and illustrated: Bassaniodes bl...

This study presents the first records of the leaf-eating beetle Lilioceris faldermanni (Coleoptera: Chryso-melidae: Criocerinae) in Bulgaria. The species was found from five localities in southern Bulgaria, situated in the Western Rhodope Mts., Sakar Mts. and Southern Black Sea coast. A new host plant, Fritillaria pontica Wahlenb (Liliaceae), was r...

Although the first reports for Albanian spiders date from the 19th century (Simon 1878), the spider fauna of the country is still poorly investigated. Deltshev et al. (2011) compiled all available faunistic data about Albanian spiders and listed 335 species from 36 families. Significant contributions during the last decade were presented by Vrenozi...

The female of Dasumia kusceri (Kratochvíl, 1935) is described for the first time. The male is redescribed. The genitalia of both sexes are illustrated. The distribution of the species is clarified. The occurrence of other species of the genus Dasumia in Bulgaria is discussed.

Macroecologists seek to identify drivers of community turnover (β-diversity) through broad spatial scales. However, the influence of local habitat features in driving broad-scale β-diversity patterns remains largely untested, owing to the objective challenges of associating local-scale variables to continental-framed datasets. We examined the relat...

Titanoeca deltshevi sp. n. is described and illustrated from Bulgaria. It appears closely related to T. praefica (Simon, 1870), T. spominima (Taczanowski, 1866) and partially (males only) to T. flavicoma L. Koch, 1872. A faunistic synopsis of the genus Titanoeca Thorell, 1870 in Bulgaria is also presented that is based on new field data and a revie...

Background Spiders (Arachnida: Araneae) are widespread in subterranean ecosystems worldwide and represent an important component of subterranean trophic webs. Yet, global-scale diversity patterns of subterranean spiders are still mostly unknown. In the frame of the CAWEB project, a European joint network of cave arachnologists, we collected data on...

In the frames of F7P project AMIGA "Assessing and monitoring the impact of genetically modified plants on agro-ecosystems" we studied the biodiversity of epigeic spiders in a typical potato growing region of Southwestern Bul-garia for three consecutive years (2013-2015). A total of 1523 individuals from 46 species were collected and defined. The pr...

Although the European fauna of spiders is relatively well studied, in the Balkans still have places for which little or almost nothing is known, especially Kosovo, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Montenegro. The spider fauna of Montenegro is still poorly known, and the number of relevant publications is very low, even with catalogs and quoted information...

Dolomedes plantarius and D. fimbriatus are among the few European spiders that are closely related to water and represent an important but insufficiently studied component of wetlands (especially on the Balkans). This study is a first attempt to summarising data for the genus Dolomedes on the Balkan Peninsula. Available literature data on the distr...

New data on the distribution of spiders of the families Atypidae, Dictynidae, Mimetidae, Miturgidae, Mysmenidae, Oecobiidae, Pholcidae, Pisauridae, Synaphridae and Zodariidae are presented. The family Mysmenidae is newly recorded for Bulgaria, while Synaphridae is newly reported family for the Balkan Peninsula and for Bulgaria. The genus Oecobiu...

In the frames of the F7P Project “Assessing and monitoring the impact of genetically modified plants on agro-ecosystems, (AMIGA)”, the partner from Bulgaria was involved in monitoring and collecting data describing the arthropods communities, representative for five biogeographical regions of Europe. Our investigations were focused on beneficial a...

The aim of this study is to present the spider species composition from the Prespa National Park in Albania. Spiders were collected mainly by pitfall trapping during a short field trip in 2013. A total of 461 specimens were found, belonging to 79 species, 47 genera and 15 families. Records of five genera and 22 species new to the fauna of Albania a...

The contribution summarizes previously unpublished data and adds records of newly collected cave-dwelling spiders from the Balkan Peninsula. New data on the distribution of 91 species from 16 families, found in 157 (27 newly established) underground sites (caves and artificial galleries) are reported due to 337 original records. Twelve species are...

A total of 294 species from 31 families have been found in Galichitsa Mt. Of them, 85 species are new to the mountain, while 20 are also new to the fauna of FYR of Macedonia. According to their current distribution the established species can be assigned to 17 zoogeographical categories, grouped into 5 complexes (Cosmopolitan, Holarctic, European,...

A total of 418 species from 35 families have been found in the Western Rhodope Mts. Sixteen species are new for the Bulgarian spider fauna and 241 species are new also for the Western Rhodopes Mts. Upon reanalyzing the taxonomic status of the subspecies Callobius claustrarius balcanicus (Drensky, 1940) a redescription and proposition for re-elevati...

In 2005 a team of Bulgarian zoologists started a project aiming to study the invertebrates inhabiting the deeper soil stratum (euedaphon) and the Superficial Underground Compartment (SUC) in Bulgaria. In the course of a four-year sampling, a total of 52 species of spiders were caught from 19 collecting sites and 9 geographical regions. They belong...

Two new Harpactea species from Bulgaria (Araneae: Dysderidae).-Two new species of the genus Harpactea, H. mentor sp. n. (male and female) and H. bulgarica sp. n. (male and female) from Bulgaria are described and illustrated. Both species are very closely related to each other on the basis of morphological characters and belong to the lepida species...

A total of 127 species from 28 families have been established in 10 localities from Slavyanka Mountain (South-West Bulgariа). Two species (Cheiracanthium rupestre Herman, 1879 and Haplodrassus bohemicus Miller & Buchar, 1977) are new to Bulgarian fauna. 94 species are new for Slavyanka Mt.

A total of 195 species from 26 families have been found in 9 localities from Lyulin Mountain (West Bulgariа). Three species (Tapinocyba silvestris GEORGESCU, 1973, Walckenaeria kochi (O. P.-CAMBRIDGE, 1872) and Agroeca lusatica(L. KOCH, 1875) are new to Bulgarian fauna. The spiders are classified into 17 zoogeographical categories, combined in 5 ch...

Spiders from the Skopje Region: a faunistic and zoogeographical analysis. – historia naturalis bulgarica, 19: 35-49. Abstract. 118 species from 67 genera and 17 families have been found in the region of Skopje City. 31 species are new for the spider fauna of Macedonia. The spiders are classified into 16 zoogeographical categories combined in 5 chor...