Abstract
Two species of the spider genus Olios are recorded for the first time from the Middle East, namely O. sericeus (Kroneberg, Citation1875) from Afghanistan and Iran, and O. iranii (Pocock, Citation1901) from Iraq. Previously recorded species of Olios are shown to be mis-identifications. A comparative diagnosis is provided for these two newly recorded-species.
Acknowledgements and Funding
We are grateful to Dr Peter Jäger for his comments on the manuscript. We would like to thank the following collection curators for their assistances: J. Altmann and P. Jäger (SMF), G. Azarkina (SZMN), P. Baňař (MMB), J. Beccaloni (NHM) and D. Mierzwa (MIZ). We are grateful to the anonymous referees for their constructive comments.
MM thanks SYNTHESYS (Synthesis of Systematic Resources) for providing European Unionfunded Integrated Activities grant to visit the NHM. Part of this research is supported by the grants of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport of the Czech Republic no. LA10036/MSMT.