New Distributional Records of Two Cobweb Spiders (Araneae: Theridiidae) Species in Chhattisgarh State, India
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54536/aei.v2i1.8838Keywords:
Chhattisgarh, Gariaband, Rishijharan, Steatoda cingulata, Theridiidae, Theridula gonygasterAbstract
This article presents updated information about the presence of two cobweb spider species in the state of Chhattisgarh: Steatoda cingulata (Thorell, 1890) and Theridula gonygaster (Simon, 1873), which are part of the family Theridiidae Sundevall, 1833. We collected the spiders by hand-picking in the Rishijharan forest region (Deobhog) of Gariaband district, Chhattisgarh, near the border with Odisha. These are the first recorded occurrences of these species and their respective genera in the state. Both these species have unique morphologies, such as S. cingulata with a dark chocolaty-colored abdomen with a yellow line on the anterior side, and T. gonygaster with a blackish abdomen with five yellow patches on the abdomen. Since only a few cobweb spider species have been previously documented in Chhattisgarh, these findings add new information about their distribution and exact location. The detailed description of their morphological features in this study will help in identifying these species easily, which will be useful for researchers in the future.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Avinash R. Nichat, Hitesh Kumar Warte, Manik Chand Banjare, Manik Chand Banjare, Jashavant Nayak
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