Arachnologische Mitteilungen 55

76 J. Guttenberger, L. Guttenberger & T. Bauer Habitat. The male was found on a bank of the river Olza (Figs 4–5) near the village of Istebna on wet mud with small water-filled pits and without vegetation.The river is enclosed by shrubbery, tree lines and a street.The landscape is domina- ted by forested areas along the hillsides and agriculture in the valleys. Other linyphiids found at the bank of the river were Agyneta rurestris (C. L. Koch, 1836) and Bathyphantes gracilis (Blackwall, 1841). Habitat and distribution Prinerigone vagans prefers humid, open habitats (Entling et al. 2007) and is often found at ground level near water (e.g. our record, Helsdingen 1997, Manderbach & Framen- au 2001, Armbruster 2003, Bosmans 2007). A very detailed review of the habitat affinities in Europe can be found in Knülle (1954: p. 101), who also mentioned a strong asso- ciation of P. vagans with small and saturated or still water- filled ground pits (“[…] Solche kleinen Bodenauskolbungen von 3-5 cm Tiefe, oft noch mit Wasserresten gefüllt, sind die Vorzugshabitate der Art.“), which could also be found at the river Olza (Fig. 5). However, several other records in Central Europe were made on annual cropland with pitfall traps (Blick et al. 2000), possibly due to aeronautic activities. It is questionable whether this species is able to build larger populations in cropland dominated landscapes, since har- vest, tillage and crop rotation induce fast changes in abiotic conditions, which lead to a very ephemeral distribution of suitable habitats for this species (e.g. areas with waterlog- ging; Kielhorn 2016) and often to domination by only a few agrobiont species (Blick et al. 2000, Samu & Szinetár 2002). In the Mediterranean, P. vagans was collected near ponds (Morano et al. 2012), but also in a variety of other habitats (Buchholz 2013). In the Maghreb, P. vagans was recorded in similar habitats with temporary or permanent water, e.g. on stones along a river bed, marshy areas or in an irrigated garden (Bosmans 2007). Prinerigone vagans has been frequently found in Great Britain, France, Germany and the Benelux (Le Peru 2007, Tutelaers 2012, Arachnologische Gesellschaft 2017, British Arachnological Society 2017), and records exist from nearly all European Mediterranean countries (Nentwig et al. 2017), but the species seems to be rare in the Czech Republic, from which only two localities are known (Czech Arachnological Society 2017). Our single male was found in a typical habitat, which supports the hypothesis that (at least along the river Olza) Polish populations of the species exist. The species is probably absent from Scandinavia (except Denmark, Vangs- gård et al. 1997) and other northern parts of Eastern Europe (Nentwig et al. 2017). It seems to be widely distributed in North Africa (Audouin 1826, Jocqué 1981, Bosmans 2007) and the Near East through to Iran (Pickard-Cambridge, 1872,Tanasevitch 2009). Interestingly, P. vagans is considered as the most common linyphiid in the Maghreb by Bosmans (2007). Other records were made, e.g., in Chinese parts of Central Asia (Zhou et al. 1983) and Marion Island in the southern Indian Ocean (Lawrence 1971). Based on the known distribution in Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland (Fig. 5) it is possible that P. vagans is sensitive to continental climates with low winter tempera- tures, as already pointed out by Knülle (1954), and that the species already benefits or will benefit from climate change in Central Europe. However, this remains speculative since wide parts of eastern parts of Europe can still be seen as arachno- logical “Terra incognita”. Taxonomic notes Prinerigone vagans was described by Audouin (1826, sub . Erigone ) from Egypt, Northern Africa, based on a male. De- nis (1948) noted that the drawings of the male pedipalp in Audouin (1826) fit relatively well to an Algerian specimen, especially in the length of the tibia and patella, but not to his French specimens, which all had a longer and more slender patella and tibia and a differing patellar apophysis. He used a younger synonym, Erigone spinosa O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1872, to name this variation and delimit it from the variation described by Audouin (1826). Unfortunately, E. spinosa was originally used for specimens collected from a variety of locali- ties in different countries (Egypt, Palestine, Italy) and it is not clear on which specimen the original drawing by O. Pickard- Fig. 4: Locality of Prinerigone vagans (Audouin, 1826), Isdebna, Bank of ri- ver Olza, Poland Fig. 3: Prinerigone vagans (Audouin, 1826) from Poland, left male pedipalp, retrolateral view (Scale line = 0.2 mm; PA = patellar apophysis)