Checklist of the spiders (Araneae) of South Africa

By

Dippenaar-Schoeman, Ansie S
Haddad, Charles R
Lotz, Leon N
Booysen, Ruan
Steenkamp, Rudolph C.
Foord, Stefan H.

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2023-11-14

Original Publication

African invertebrates : a journal of biodiversity research

Volume

64

Series / Issue

Issue: 3

Pages

221--289

Subjects

Conservation status , endemicity , faunistic surveys , global distribution , provincial , Sample Bias , SANSA , South African National Survey of Arachnida

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Pietermaritzburg, South Africa Council of the Natal Museum 2001-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/AfrInvertebr.64.111047

 

Abstract

A checklist of 2265 spider species and subspecies, 495 genera and 71 families is provided. Data were extracted from the South African National Survey of Arachnida database and over 200 taxonomic revisions, ending December 2022. Global distributions, endemicity and conservation assessment using IUCN Criteria are provided for each species. A total of 1325 spp. are endemic to South Africa (58.5%), 126 spp. (5.6%) are of special concern and 693 spp. (30.6%) are Data Deficient (DD), while 15 species were described without exact locality data. Most species (1444 spp., 63.8%) are widely distributed with no known threats and are of Least Concern. A total of 1316 spp. (57.6%) are known from both sexes and 23 spp. (1.0%) were described from juveniles. Salticidae is the most species-rich family (354 spp.), followed by Gnaphosidae (195 spp.), Thomisidae (143 spp.) and Araneidae (100 spp.) and ten families are represented by a single species.