Panamomops szinetari (Araneae: Linyphiidae), a new species for Czechia and Slovakia; a Pannonian steppe relict, an expanding thermophilic element, or an introduced invasive species? The paper reports on the occurrence of the newly described species
Panamomops szinetari (Gallé-Szpisjak & Gallé, 2025) in Czechia and Slovakia. The species was previously known only from eastern Hungary. New localities are found in southeastern Czechia and southern Slovakia, on the northern edge of the Pannonian region. It was caught using pitfal traps on the soil surface and pipe traps inside the soil. It was found in steppe grasslands, salt marshes, meadows, and a highway cutting. The species is bound to grasslands and also penetrates cracks in the soil. However, it is also capable of colonizing secondary habitats. It is unlikely that this is a relict species that would have escaped the attention of two hundred years of intensive arachnological research in central Europe. It has appeared in three central European countries within just six years (2015 in Hungary, 2019 in Slovakia and 2021 in Czechia* – Figs 1–7). 5rane were a species undergoing gradual northward expansion due to climate warming, for example, this would have explained the new findings in Slovakia and Moravia, but not the many years of oversight in Hungary. Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that this is in fact an introduced species that prefers natural steppe communities, where it has been spreading over the last ten years. If this were the case, 5raneae, we do not know its true geographical origin.
