Araneidae  Clerck, 1757 / Cyrtophora  Simon, 1864   1 species

Cyrtophora citricola (Forsskål, 1775)

Description
Male

Opisthosoma usually without dorsal humps and posterior lobes.

Body length male: 2.7 mm
Female

Prosoma densely covered with whie hairs. Sternum blackish with light median patch. Chelicerae with 4 denticles on promargin and 3 denticles on retromargin. Legs often brown with dark annulation. Opisthosoma dorsally with 2 pairs of protuberances, posteriorly with 2 lobes.

Body length female: 7.5-13.3 mm
Distribution
  Presence
  Not established
  No data
Global distribution (WSC 2026): Southern Europe, Africa, Middle East, Pakistan, India, China, Japan. Introduced to Dominican Rep., Costa Rica, Colombia, Brazil
Figures
Distribution List
Albania   (Deltshev et al., 2011b) ||| Algeria   (Benhacene et al., 2023) ||| Croatia   (Majer et al., 2010) ||| Cyprus   (Bosmans et al., 2019c) ||| Egypt   (El-Hennawy, 2017a) ||| France   (Le Peru, 2007) ||| France / Corsica   (Le Peru, 2007) ||| Greece   (Bosmans & Chatzaki, 2005) ||| Greece / Crete   (Bosmans et al., 2013) ||| Italy   (Isaia et al., 2025) ||| Italy / Sardinia   (Isaia et al., 2025) ||| Italy / Sicily   (Isaia et al., 2025) ||| Libya   (Elkrew et al., 2024) ||| Malta   (Pfliegler et al., 2017) ||| Montenegro   (Mikhailov & Temereva, 2014; Naumova et al., 2019a) ||| Morocco   (Benhalima & Bosmans, 2024) ||| Poland   (Rozwałka et al., 2017a) ||| Portugal   (Branco et al., 2019) ||| Spain   (Branco et al., 2019) ||| Spain / Balearic Islands   (Branco et al., 2019) ||| Tunisia   (Bosmans, 2003; Kmira et al., 2025) ||| Turkey (Asia)   (Elverici et al., 2012) ||| United Kingdom   (Lavery, 2019; Oxford, 2017) |||
References

Benhacene R, Adjami A, Hadjeb A, Kermiche K, Ouakid M L (2023) Bibliographic checklist of the Algerian spider fauna (Araneae). Zootaxa 5352: 301-357 pdf

Benhalima S, Bosmans R (2024) First historical checklist of spiders (Arachnida: Araneae) from Morocco, between 1840–2024. Zootaxa 5555: 407-535 pdf

Bosmans R (2003) A checklist of the spiders of Tunisia, with description of a new species of Palliduphantes Saaristo & Tanasevitch (Araneae: Linyphiidae). Kaupia - Darmstädter Beiträge zur Naturgeschichte 12: 89-109 pdf

Bosmans R, Chatzaki M (2005) A catalogue of the spiders of Greece – a critical review of all spider species cited from Greece with their localities. Nieuwsbrief van de Belgische arachnologische Vereniging 20 (2, suppl.): 1-124 pdf

Bosmans R, Van Keer J, Russell-Smith A, Hadjiconstantis M, Komnenov M, Bosselaers J, Huber S, McCowan D, Snazell R, Decae A, Zoumides C, Kielhorn K-H, Oger P (2019c) Spiders of Cyprus (Araneae). A catalogue of all currently known species from Cyprus. Newsletter of the Belgian Arachnological Society 34, Suppl. 1: 1-173 pdf

Bosmans R, Van Keer J, Russell-Smith A, Kronestedt T, Alderweireldt M, Bosselaers J, De Koninck H (2013) Spiders of Crete (Araneae). A catalogue of all currently known species from the Greek island of Crete. Nieuwsbrief van de Belgische Arachnologische Vereniging 28 (Suppl. 1): 1-147 pdf

Branco V V, Morano E, Cardoso P (2019) An update to the Iberian spider checklist (Araneae). Zootaxa 4614: 201-254 pdf

Crespo L C, Cardoso P, Henriques S, Gaspar C (2009b) Spiders (Araneae) from Porto Santo (Madeira, Portgal): Additions to the current knowledge. Boletín de la Sociedad Entomologica Aragonesa 45: 471-475 pdf

Cubas-Rodríguez A M, Brescovit A D (2025) Occurrence of Cyrtophora citricola (Forskål, 1775) (Araneidae) in Honduras: distribution and natural history. Revista Ibérica de Aracnología 47: 117-120 pdf

Deltshev C, Vrenozi B, Blagoev G, Lazarov S (2011b) Spiders of Albania – faunistic and zoogeographical review (Arachnida: Araneae). Acta Zoologica Bulgarica 63: 125-144 pdf

El-Hennawy H K (2017a) A list of Egyptian spiders (revised in 2017). Serket 15: 167-183 pdf

Elkrew H, Hamza A, Ghana S, Shaibi T, Swehli A I, Elmareme H, Ahmad A (2024) Checklist of the spiders (Araneae) of Libya. Pakistan Journal of Life and Social Sciences 22: 19346-19369 pdf

Elverici M, Teksam I, Özkütük R S, Kunt K B (2012) Cyrtophora citricola (Araneae: Araneidae: Cyrtophorinae), a first record for Turkey. Arachnologische Mitteilungen 44: 7-9 pdf

Isaia M, Tolve M, Pantini P (2025) Araneae.it: 2.0: the new updated version of the digital catalog of the Italian spiders and other arachnids (Arachnida: Araneae, Opiliones, Scorpiones, Pseudoscorpiones, Palpigradi, Solifugae). Fragmenta Entomologica 57: 197-204 pdf

Kmira G, Nasri-Ammar, Petillon J, Bosmans R (2025) Catalog of the spiders of Tunisia (Arachnida: Araneae). Zootaxa 5641: 1-95 pdf

Lavery A (2019) A revised checklist of the spiders of Great Britain and Ireland. Arachnology 18: 196-212 pdf

Le Peru B (2007) Catalogue et répartition des araignées de France. Revue Arachnologique 16: 1-468 pdf

Levy G (1998a) Twelve genera of orb-weaver spiders (Araneae, Araneidae) from Israel. Israel Journal of Zoology 43: 311-365 pdf

Majer M, Kelava I, Lugic E, Zec M (2010) Araneofauna of the Mediterranean island of Vis (Croatia). In: Nentwig W, Entling M, Kropf C (eds.), European Arachnology 2008: 125-127 pdf

Mikhailov K G, Temereva E N (2014) A remarkable spider - Cyrtophora citricola in Montenegro. Newsletter of the British Arachnological Society 129: 5-6 pdf

Murcia-Moreno D, Gálvez D (2025) Introduced spiders in Panama: species distributions and new records. Biology 14(4): 1-17 pdf

Naumova M, Lazarov S, Deltshev C (2019a) Faunistic diversity of the spiders in Montenegro (Arachnida: Araneae). Ecologica Montenegrina 22: 50-89 pdf

Oxford G (2017) The tropical tent-web spider Cyrtophora citricola (Araneidae) in North Yorkshire: a touch of the Mediterranean. Newsletter of the British Arachnological Society 139: 19-20 pdf

Pfliegler W A, Schönhofer A, Niedbała W, Vella P, Sciberras A, Vella A (2017) New records of mites (Acari) and harvestmen (Opiliones) from Malta with a preliminary checklist of Maltese Arachnida. Soil Organisms 89: 85-110 pdf

Rozwałka R, Rutkowski T, Bielak-Bielecki P (2017a) New data on introduced and rare synanthropic spider species (Arachnida: Araneae) in Poland (II). Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Skłodowska, Lublin-Polonia 71: 59-85 pdf

Sherwood D (2025) Annotated checklist of imported non-native spider (Araneae) taxa recorded in the United Kingdom 1800–2024. Arthropoda Selecta 34: 121-160 pdf

Taberlet J-P (unpubl.)

WSC (2026) World Spider Catalog. Version 27. Natural History Museum Bern, online at http://wsc.nmbe.ch (13.2.2026) doi: 10.24436/2 pdf

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