Latrodectus cinctus Blackwall, 1865

Al-Khazali, Azhar Mohammed, Kachel, Hamid Saeid, Zamani, Alireza & Hussen, Fenik Sherzad, 2023, An updated and annotated checklist of the spiders (Arachnida: Araneae) of Iraq, Zootaxa 5339 (2), pp. 132-158 : 144

Latrodectus cinctus Blackwall, 1865

Records: Baghdad, Basrah ( Abdul-Rassoul et al. 2012 [sub Latrodectus scelio Thorell, 1870 , attributed to L. renivulvatus Dahl, 1902 by Zamani & El-Hennawy 2016]; Al-Hadlag & Najim 2015 [sub Latrodectus hasselti Thorell, 1870 , attributed to L. renivulvatus by Zamani & El-Hennawy 2016]; Baker & Ali 2020 [sub Latrodectus sp. ]).

Distribution: Cape Verde Islands, Africa, Iraq, Kuwait, Iran.

Comment: The Iraqi record of L. scelio by Abdul-Rassoul et al. (2012) and that of L. hasselti by Al-Hadlag & Najim (2015) were attributed to L. renivulvatus by Zamani & El-Hennawy (2016). By the colouration and pattern, the reported Iraqi populations are very similar to those reported as L. cinctus from Iran ( Zamani et al. 2014). Most likely, they represent the same species, a matter which should be investigated ideally using integrative methods. For now, we tentatively assign these records to L. cinctus .