Type of site | Database |
---|---|
Available in | English |
Owner | Naturhistorisches Museum der Burgergemeinde Bern (Natural History Museum of Bern) |
URL | www |
Launched | June 2000 (text pages) January 2015 (database) |
Current status | 24.5 |
The World Spider Catalog (WSC) is an online searchable database concerned with spider taxonomy. It aims to list all accepted families, genera and species, as well as provide access to the related taxonomic literature. The WSC began as a series of individual web pages in 2000, created by Norman I. Platnick of the American Museum of Natural History. After Platnick's retirement in 2014, the Natural History Museum of Bern (Switzerland) took over the catalog, converting it to a relational database. [1]
As of June 2022 [update] , 50,151 accepted species were listed. By October 25, 2023 this number had increased to 51,548 for an average of rate of discovery being 3 new species per day. [2]
The order Araneae (spiders) has the seventh-most species of all orders. The existence of the World Spider Catalog makes spiders the largest taxon with an online listing that is updated regularly. It has been described as an "exhaustive resource" that has "promoted rigorous scholarship and amplified productivity" in the taxonomy of spiders. [3]
The family Cyrtaucheniidae, known as wafer-lid trapdoor spiders, are a widespread family of Mygalomorphae spiders.
Hexathelidae is a family of mygalomorph spiders. It is one of a number of families and genera of spiders known as tunnelweb or funnel-web spiders. In 2018, the family was substantially reduced in size by genera being moved to three separate families: Atracidae, Macrothelidae and Porrhothelidae.
Leptonetidae is a family of small spiders adapted to live in dark and moist places such as caves. The family is relatively primitive having diverged around the Middle Jurassic period. They were first described by Eugène Simon in 1890.
Norman Ira Platnick was an American biological systematist and arachnologist. At the time of his death, he was a professor emeritus of the Richard Gilder Graduate School and Peter J. Solomon Family Curator Emeritus of the invertebrate zoology department of the American Museum of Natural History. A 1973 Ph.D. recipient at Harvard University, Platnick described over 1,800 species of spiders from around the world, making him the second most prolific spider taxonomist in history, behind only Eugène Simon. Until 2014 he was also the maintainer of the World Spider Catalog, a website formerly hosted by the AMNH which tracks the arachnology literature, and attempts to maintain a comprehensive list, sorted taxonomically, of every species of spider which has been formally described. In 2007 he received the International Society of Arachnology's Bonnet award, named for Pierre Bonnet, in recognition of his work on the catalog.
Microstigmatidae is a small family of spiders with about 38 described species in eleven genera. They are small ground-dwelling and free-living spiders that make little use of silk.
Austrochilidae is a small spider family with nine species in two genera. Austrochilus and Thaida are endemic to the Andean forest of central and southern Chile and adjacent Argentina.
Cithaeronidae is a small family of araneomorph spiders first described by Simon in 1893 Female Cithaeron are about 5 to 7 millimetres long, males about 4 millimetres (0.16 in).
Gallieniellidae is a family of spiders first described by J. Millot in 1947. It was originally thought to be endemic to Madagascar until species were also found in southern Kenya, northeastern Argentina, and Australia. Drassodella was transferred from the family Gnaphosidae in 1990. They are suspected to be specialized in ant-preying.
Trochanteriidae is a family of spiders first described by Ferdinand Karsch in 1879 containing about 52 species in 6 genera. Most are endemic to Australia though Doliomalus and Trochanteria are from South America and Plator is from Asia. Platyoides species exist in southern and eastern Africa, Madagascar, and the Canary Islands with one species, P. walteri, introduced to Australia.
Orsolobidae is a six-eyed spider family with about 180 described species in thirty genera. It was first described by J. A. L. Cooke in 1965, and was raised to family status from "Dysderidae" in 1985.
Stenochilidae is a family of southeast Asian araneomorph spiders that produce ecribellate silk. First described by Tamerlan Thorell in 1873, it now contains twelve described species in two genera.
Anapidae is a family of rather small spiders with 232 described species in 58 genera. It includes the former family Micropholcommatidae as the subfamily Micropholcommatinae, and the former family Holarchaeidae. Most species are less than 2 millimetres (0.079 in) long.
Symphytognathidae is a family of spiders with 90 described species in eight genera. They occur in the tropics of Central and South America and the Australian region. Exceptions include Anapistula benoiti, Anapistula caecula, and Symphytognatha imbulunga, found in Africa, Anapistula ishikawai, found in Japan, and Anapistula jerai, found in Southeast Asia.
Archaeidae, also known as assassin spiders and pelican spiders, is a spider family with about ninety described species in five genera. It contains small spiders, ranging from 2 to 8 millimetres long, that prey exclusively on other spiders. They are unusual in that they have "necks", ranging from long and slender to short and thick. The name "pelican spider" refers to these elongated jaws and necks used to catch their prey. Living species of Archaeidae occur in South Africa, Madagascar and Australia, with the sister family Mecysmaucheniidae occurring in southern South America and New Zealand.
Mecysmaucheniidae is a family of araneomorph spiders first described by Eugène Simon in 1895. Most genera occur in South America, with two genera endemic to New Zealand.
The spider genus Spintharus occurs from the northeastern United States to Brazil. Nicholas Marcellus Hentz circumscribed the genus in 1850, initially as a monospecific genus containing his newly described species S. flavidus.
The Euctenizidae are a family of mygalomorph spiders. They are now considered to be more closely related to Idiopidae.
Hexurella is a genus of spiders, found in the United States and Mexico. It is the only genus in the family Hexurellidae.
Triaeris is a genus of goblin spiders erected by Eugène Simon in 1890 for the species Triaeris stenaspis. It was described from females from the Lesser Antilles; specimens were found later in heated greenhouses around Europe. No males of T. stenaspis have ever been found and the species may be parthenogenetic. Its taxonomy is confused, and the number of species that should be placed in the genus is unclear. In 2012, Norman I. Platnick and co-authors described the genus Triaeris as "an enigma wrapped around a mystery". They consider that most species assigned to the genus after Simon in 1890 and before 2012 do not belong to Triaeris.