Nyffeler M, Whitfield Gibbons J. 2021. Spiders (Arachnida: Araneae) feeding on snakes (Reptilia: Squamata). The Journal of Arachnology 49(1):1–27.
On page 3, subsection 3.1, second paragraph we stated “. . ..and a white colored, not uniquely identifiable Iranian widow spider (possibly Latrodectus pallidus O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1872). . ..“After the paper was published, Alireza Zamani, an expert on the spiders of Iran, informed us that the video (posted on the website of Rok News Agency Iran) was probably not produced in Iran and that the spider shown in the video is not a Latrodectus pallidus; instead it actually is a Latrodectus geometricus C. L. Koch, 1841 verified by the unique egg sacs with silk spikes on the surface which can be seen in the video as well (A. Zamani, pers. comm.).
On the other hand, according to Alireza Zamani an incident of a female comb-footed spider (Steatoda triangulosa (Walckenaer, 1802)) feeding upon a blind snake (Typhlopidae) – not mentioned in the Nyffeler & Gibbons (2021) paper – had been photographed in Iran (photographer: Seyed Hamze Kalantaris https://www.instagram.com/p/BxuJtTHgau_/).
In Figure 9 (page 13) the image of a colubrid snake was incorrectly identified as Sonoran gopher snake (Pituophis catenifer (Blainville, 1835)). According to the herpetologists Harry W. Greene, William Lamar, and Dirk Stevenson the photo most likely depicts a young racer (Coluber constrictor Linnaeus, 1758). This change of snake species name refers also to the text on page 13, subsection 4.3, right column, where we stated “. . ..In that case, a juvenile Sonoran gopher snake (Pituophis catenifer) about 20–25 cm in length, whose head and much of its body was wrapped up in spider webbing with other detritus (i.e., gum, small bits of paper, and pebbles) attached to it, was found in a building (Tim Akimoff, pers. comm.; Fig. 9). . ..” This should be replaced by the sentence “. . ..In that case, a juvenile racer (Coluber constrictor) about 20–25 cm in length, whose head and much of its body was wrapped up in spider webbing with other detritus (i.e., gum, small bits of paper, and pebbles) attached to it, was found in a building (Tim Akimoff, pers. comm.; Fig. 9). . ..”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We wish to thank Alireza Zamani (University of Turku, Finland), Harry W. Greene (Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA), William Lamar (formerly University of Texas at Tyler, Texas, USA), and Dirk Stevenson (Altamaha Environmental Consulting, Hinesville, Georgia, USA) for pointing out these errors and correctly identifying the species in question.
