small size. The smallest among the ‘dwarfs’ he described in the following year was Ninetis subtilissima, for which he reported a total body length of 1.0–1.5 mm. However, it was not only the small size that intrigued Simon: a few years later, in his epochal Histoire Naturelle des Araignées from 1893, he considered this species so exceptional that he created a separate subfamily for it, the Ninetinae, opposing all other Pholcidae known at the time.
Ninetis subtilissima Simon, male from Oman, Wadi Ghul and female with embryos from Oman, Wadi Shab.
On the Arabian Peninsula, no further species of Ninetis has been described since Simon's paper from 1890. Here we describe three new
species and provide numerous new records, suggesting that the lack of data is a result of sampling bias and missing taxonomic effort rather than of rarity. In fact, Ninetis is abundant and widespread on the Arabian Peninsula: we found representatives of Ninetis at 23 of 68 localities visited in Oman and Saudi Arabia between 2017 and 2024.
Typical habitats of Ninetis spiders. The photos show two localitties in Oman (Dhofar) where the new species Ninetis marnif was found.