Aituaria borutzkyi
Creators: name: Nadolny, Anton A.
name: Turbanov, Ilya S.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Arachnida
Araneae
Nesticidae
Aituaria
Aituaria borutzkyi

description: Aituaria borutzkyi (Reimoser, 1930)
Figs 2 B, 15, 16
Material examined.
• 3 ♀♀ (TNU 10226), Crimea, Bakhchisarai Distr., nr Khodzha-Sala Vil., steep southern slope of Baba-Dagh Plateau (= Mangup-Kale Gorodishche), Mangupskaya I (= MK- 1) Cave, 28. IV. 2017, I. S. Turbanov leg. • 10 ♀♀ (TNU 10237/1), same cave, 3. V. 2018, I. S. Turbanov leg. • 3 ♀♀ (TNU 10266), same cave, 6–8. V. 2017, O. L. Makarova, K. V. Makarov leg. • 1 ♂ (TNU 10236/1), same cave, 11. VI. 2018, I. S. Turbanov, A. A. Nadolny leg. • 1 ♂ 1 ♀ (TNU 10273), same cave, 2. X. 2020, I. S. Turbanov, A. A. Turbanova leg.
Comparative material.
• 1 ♂ (TNU 10274), southern part of Simferopol, indoors; 27. VI. 2011; A. A. Nadolny leg.
Distribution.
Minor Asia (Turkey), the west Caucasus (Abkhazia) and Crimea (Nadolny and Kovblyuk 2007).
Records from the Crimean caves.
Map (Fig. 17 B – black circle). Mangupskaya I Cave on a steep southern slope of Baba-Dagh Plateau (present data).
Ecology.
A troglophile and synanthropic species (Nadolny and Kovblyuk 2007; Mammola et al. 2018; present data). In Crimea, A. borutzkyi has been found in anthropogenic biotopes of Simferopol and Fersmanovo Vil. (Nadolny and Kovblyuk 2007, present data). During the present study, it was found only in Mangupskaya I Cave on Baba-Dagh Plateau. On this plateau there was the city of Dori (= Doros), the capital of the medieval late Byzantine Orthodox Principality of Theodoro (13 th – mid- 15 th centuries), where some of currently known caves were used for economic and religious purposes. After the siege and capture of Dori in 1475 by Ottoman troops, the Turkish fortress of Mangup-Kale was built on the plateau and existed there until 1774. In our opinion, under the influence of long-term human activity on Baba-Dagh Plateau, special conditions were created for the colonisation of caves by troglophilous species, which could have been unintentionally introduced to Crimea by active trade between the medieval Principality of Theodoro and / or the Turkish fortress of Mangup-Kale and medieval states of the west Caucasus and the Ottoman Empire (Herzen and Makhneva-Chernets 2006), the native range of A. borutzkyi lays (Nadolny and Kovblyuk 2007). Therefore, in Crimea A. borutzkyi seems to be an accidentally introduced facultative synanthrope, locally established in suitable subterranean biotope as a subtroglophile.
Additional diagnostic details.
The complex structure of copulatory organs in Aituaria members has been discussed and illustrated (Marusik et al. 2017; Fomichev et al. 2022). Here we give SEM micrographs of the male palp of A. borutzkyi to show their details (Fig. 15 A – G): the paracymbium bears three apophyses, of which the dorsal and distal apophyses are covered with triangular scales (Fig. 15 A, E, F); the rounded anterior part of subtegulum is prominent in ventral view, the rest of it is hidden behind the tegulum (Fig. 15 A); the tegulum is discoidal; the radix pear-shaped with a pointed posterior process; the triangular radical apophysis has a scaly surface (Fig. 15 A, C, G); the conductor consists of three parts: median process with two pointed and one rounded outgrowths, the relatively massive retrolateral process that is bifurcated on its ventral side, and the long, narrow and transparent prolateral process (Fig. 15 B, C); the connection between embolus and tegulum forms a sharp bend on the anterio-retrolateral side of the bulb (Fig. 15 D); the embolus with a furrow almost along its entire length (Fig. 15 C, G). For the female of A. borutzkyi: the epigyne has a rounded edge and is oval, with poorly sclerotised receptacles; the spherical, club-like gland is heavily sclerotised (Fig. 16 A, B); the copulatory openings situate near the epigynal edge, entering the receptacles laterally (Fig. 16 B).
A recent review (Fomichev et al. 2022) considered four species of Aituaria, of which only two have been found in Crimea, including its subterranean habitats: viz., A. borutzkyi and A. pontica. Males of these species are easily separable by the embolic shape: the narrow embolus in A. borutzkyi and wide in A. pontica; also, all other apophysis differ in their shapes (cf. Fomichev et al. 2022: figs 25, 27). The females differ in detailed structures of the epigyne (cf. Fig. 16 A – C and Marusik et al. 2017: figs 18, 19): A. pontica has a more bended edge of the epigynal plate compared to that in A. borutzkyi; the stem and head in the club-shaped gland are of equal width in A. pontica, while the head is wider than the stem in A. borutzkyi.
description: Published as part of Nadolny, Anton A. & Turbanov, Ilya S., 2025, A review of cave spiders (Arachnida, Araneae) of the Crimean Mountains, with descriptions of two new species, pp. 37-80 in ZooKeys 1230 on pages 37-80, DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.1230.137029