Araneae (spiders) of South America: a synopsis of current knowledge

ABSTRACT

South America is the fourth largest continent on the planet; its birds, mammals, and amphibian's biodiversity is relatively well known, but no outright assessment of the continent spider (Araneae) fauna has been done to date. From January 2019 to August 2020, a recompilation of all spider species registered to occur in South America was conducted based on the data available from the World Spider Catalog [2020. Version 18.5. Natural History Museum Bern. [cited Jan 2019–Aug 2020]]. The assessment revealed that the South American spider fauna comprises 83 families, 1018 genera, and 8302 species, representing 17% of the world spider fauna biodiversity; however, 94% of the spider-specific biodiversity is found nowhere else on earth. A total of 78 species have been introduced in South America, while 30 species were exported from the South American continent to other parts of the world. For all South American families, an overview of the current knowledge is presented: distribution, endemism, taxonomical inconsistency, and problems are discussed. The complete checklist of spiders occurring in SA with distribution given by countries and the complete list of introduced and exported species with details of their native region and current known distribution are presented.

KEYWORDS:

• Biodiversity
• taxonomy
• distribution pattern
• introduction
• synanthropic

Acknowledgments

Firstly, the author would like to express my sincere gratitude to Elicio Eladio Tapia Caisaguano for his support, enthusiasm, and review of the checklist, to Anabelle Tapia for her spider enthusiasm. Secondly, the author is grateful to the following curators for their support in hosting me in their laboratory, sending or loaning precious types specimens, Christine Rollard and Élise-Anne Leguin (MNHN, Paris). Thanks to Martin Ramírez and Cor Vink for the exchange of information on type specimens. Finally, the author is thankful to the following people for their general support, Giovanni Onore (OTONGA Foundation), Alvaro Barragán, Fernanda María Salazar, Veronica Crespo (QCAZ), and Danilo Harms (ZMH) and the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).