Morphological Similarity and Taxonomic Confusion Between Neoscona (Araneidae) Species: Neoscona adianta (Walckenaer, 1802) and Neoscona byzanthina (Pavesi, 1876)

This study presents a comparative morphological analysis of the closely related species Neoscona adianta (Walckenaer, 1802) and Neoscona byzanthina (Pavesi, 1876) (Araneidae). A total of 100 specimens representing these two species were examined, and 83 morphological characters were identified. A dataset was constructed and scored based on these characters, including morphological features of the prosoma, opisthosoma, spinnerets, as well as male and female genital structures. Principal Coordinate Analysis (PCoA) and the Unweighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic Mean (UPGMA) were applied to the dataset to generate scatter plots and dendrograms illustrating morphological relationships among the specimens. The results indicated that specimens of N. adianta and N. byzanthina could not be reliably distinguished based on habitus-related morphological characters or genital morphology. Analyses based solely on female genital characters allowed partial separation of the species, whereas male genital characters exhibited limited discriminatory power. Overall, the findings suggest that these taxa are not fully differentiated and that N. byzanthina may represent a subspecies of N. adianta . However, further integrative and comprehensive comparative studies are required to clarify the taxonomic relationship between these taxa.