Thorell (1887) proposed. Aracus as a monotypic gnaphosid genus, with Aracus captator Thorell, 1887 from Myanmar as the generotype. Even though, Roewer (1942) transferred Araneus nigropunctatus Rainbow, 1920 to Aracus, it was later transferred back to Araneus Clerck, 1757 (Roewer 1942). The holotype of A. captator is in fact a female specimen (M. Tavano, pers. comm.), not a male as noted in the World Spider Catalog (2021). This is well clear from the original description of the genus and the species, where Thorell (1887) used the word 'Femina' at the section of species description, indicating that the type species of Aracus was a female. Moreover, he did not provide description of the male except a 'male symbol' that was put together with the body measurement. This should be a mistake of Thorell that might happened while preparing the species description and the body measurement provided is of the female holotype. An examination of the holotype of A. captator confirmed that it is based on a female (see below). The epigynum of A. captator seems closely similar to the epigynum of Zelotes Gistel, 1848, indicating that Thorell (1887) misidentified a Zelotes species and placed it in a new genus. In this paper, I propose to synonymise Aracus with Zelotes and thus transfer A. captator to Zelotes. Abbreviation used in the text: MSNG-Museo Civico di Storia Naturale 'Giacomo Doria', Genova, Italy. I am grateful to Maria Tavano, MSNG, Genova, Italy for sharing the information and the images of the holotype female of A. captator. I extend my heartfelt thanks to an anonymous reviewer for the constructive comments on an earlier version of the manuscript and to Dr Guilherme Azevedo (San Diego State University, California) for his editorial efforts.
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