East meets West: on the true identity of Cheiracanthium rupestre and Xysticus albomaculatus (AraChnida: Araneae: EutiChuridae, Thomisidae)

Cheiracanthium rupestre Herman, 1879, and Xysticus albomaculatus Kulczyński, 1891, both originally described from Hungary,are among the most rarely reported species of their genera in Europe. Here we report that both of these species have very close relationshipsto similarly uncommon species originally described from France at about the same time. The specimens currently consideredas Cheiracanthium rupestre turn out to be very closely related to, but distinct from, Cheiracanthium striolatum Simon, 1878. However,the original description of C. rupestre does not match these specimens nor any other known species of Cheiracanthium. We thereforeconsider C. rupestre a nomen dubium and suggest that all previous records of this species after the original description actually refer toCheiracanthium macedonicum Drensky, 1921. Xysticus albomaculatus, on the other hand, turns out to be a junior synonym of Bassanianabaudueri (Simon, 1877) syn. nov., expanding the range of this species considerably to the East and at the same time confirming that it isa genuine European species, rather than a recent immigrant from North America as previously suspected.