THE SPIDER CATALOGUE OF ARGENTINA
Argentina has a long tradition in the study of Arachnology. Since the pioneering work of Eduardo L. Holmberg in the nineteenth century, several generations of researchers—sometimes working in collaboration with foreign specialists—have produced an important amount of contributions that together constitute a relatively large cultural and scientific heritage in the region. Along with Brazil and Uruguay, our country has traditionally conformed the most important arachnological research center in Latin America, which is, further, one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet.
After approximately a century and a half of work, the valuable information produced is scattered across numerous publications that have almost always dealt with specific topics, usually limited to taxonomic descriptions of species or revisions of supraspecific groups.
From the 1950s onward, several European specialists (Pierre Bonnet, Karl Roewer, Paolo Brignoli) undertook the task of compiling all available information on the taxonomy of the group into different volumes. This effort was brilliantly completed by the eminent arachnologist Norman I. Platnick (United States), who adapted the ever-growing volumes to an online format, providing the global arachnological community with a formidable tool: The World Spider Catalog, created and maintained by him until his retirement (2014). This catalog is a database covering the entire order, including bibliographic information, fossil groups, and periodic updates of all taxonomic novelties, together with their full histories (synonymies, transfers, etc.).
Based on the aforementioned catalog, in the book “Biodiversidad de Artrópodos Argentinos Vol. 3”, Cristian Grismado, Martín Ramírez, and Matías Izquierdo published a complete list of all spider species recorded from the Argentine fauna (Grismado et al. 2014), within the framework of the first synthesis specifically focused on the taxonomy and diversity of the order in Argentina (including an updated family identification key).
In that work, all families accepted at that time were listed, along with their global and national diversity data. Although the main basis of the list was Platnick’s catalog, it also included unpublished thesis data and studies that were becoming known simultaneously with the publication (including information presented in other chapters of the same book that addressed particular groups).
Nevertheless, this effort quickly became outdated due to the dynamic of knowledge generation, as new scientific works continued to add species and genera or modify family boundaries. At the time of publication, 1,265 species were listed (Grismado et al. 2014:55), a number that increased within a few months by more than eighty newly recorded taxa in the country.
For this reason, we decided to create this website to keep the information on the richness of Argentina’s spider fauna up to date, offering data that may be useful both for understanding our natural heritage and for facilitating access to knowledge for new people interested in the study of these fascinating animals.
USE AND SCOPE OF THIS CATALOGUE
This catalogue was not intended to replace or complement Platnick’s World Spider Catalog, which, following the retirement of that researcher, came to be administered by the World Spider Catalog Association (WSCA), based in Bern (Switzerland). The World Spider Catalog (WSC) is available online at http://www.wsc.nmbe.ch/ that has not only continued the efforts of its predecessors but has also modernized them in terms of accessibility, presentation, search tools, and—above all (thanks to the flexibility of Swiss intellectual property laws)—has included access to most articles in PDF format. Articles published in modern journals are uploaded regularly as they appear, and older articles are contributed collaboratively by subscribers as they are digitized. For these reasons, the WSC is still an irreplaceable and indispensable tool for arachnologists and other interested users who wish to stay informed about the taxonomy of such a diverse order.
The Spider Catalogue of Argentina, on the other hand, was conceived for those who wish to know the specific richness and diversity of species recorded within the country’s territory. For our purposes, the WSC has only a single limitation: it compiles only publications of a systematic and taxonomic nature. This excludes most faunistic, diversity, and ecological studies, as well as unpublished theses, which frequently include new species records for particular regions or countries. We consider this information essential not only to keep numerical data up to date but also to provide concrete data relevant to the management of issues related to knowledge, divulgation, and conservation of the country’s natural heritage.
The catalogue is organized by families, within which species are listed alphabetically (see the “FAMILIAS” section). Neither taxonomic history nor geographic distribution will be found here. For such information, which we consider beyond the scope of this project, we recommend consulting The World Spider Catalog and conducting searches for the taxon of interest there.
The list is organized alphabetically by families. Next to the name of each species, the author and year of description are given, as listed in Grismado et al. (2014). Species that were unnamed but cited in that publication are accompanied by this reference in brackets. Records published after that work are also expressed in brackets. Likewise, some faunistic and ecological publications with new records prior to 2014 that had been omitted from the chapter are indicated (e.g., Almada et al. 2012; Ávalos et al. 2007, 2009; Forster 1970).
It should be noted that during the editorial process of the chapter by Grismado et al. (2014), taxonomic novelties dated in 2012, 2013, and 2014 were published that do not appear in the chapter’s list. In those cases, the names of species described in those years appear without any clarification in brackets, in order to avoid redundancies and possible confusion.
In the section “REFERENCIASS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS”, the publications that served as sources of information for records published after Grismado et al. (2014) are listed. The aforementioned chapter is assumed to be the starting point of the present catalogue.
_____________________________________________
NOTE FOR THE 2022 VERSION AND SUBSEQUENT ONES
There was an early comprehensive publication on the Argentine spider fauna: the work of the Brazilian arachnologist Cándido Firmino de Mello-Leitão, who was at the time the leading continental authority in the discipline. In his “Catálogo das aranhas argentinas” (1933), he compiled Holmberg’s works (with the assistance of his Argentine colleague José Canals), presenting the first catalogue of Argentine representatives of the order. That work, it must be said, contains data that are difficult to validate with current taxonomic information, although its importance as a pioneering effort must be recognized. For this reason, we decided to incorporate its information into the present catalogue (2022 onward), after a critical analysis of the records, especially regarding the traceability of taxon names. The relevance and influence of Mello-Leitão during the first half of the twentieth century demanded such inclusion. In subsequent versions, records recovered from that work will be cited in brackets as [“Mello-Leitão 1933, cita dudosa” (doubtful record)], with the corresponding clarifications in cases where nomenclatural changes have occurred, and pending future knowledge of the location of the cited specimens or the recording of new collections from the referenced localities.
_____________________________________________
NOTE FOR THE 2026 VERSION AND SUBSEQUENT ONES
As more than ten years since the publication of the chapter “Araneae: taxonomía, diversidad, y clave de identificación de familias de la Argentina” (Grismado et al. 2014), which served as the basis for this catalogue, the authors have decided to remove those morphospecies that have not been formally named during that period and that were included in that chapter and in previous versions of the CAA. We consider that a reasonable amount of time has passed for these morphospecies to have been described or identified, and that at present the traceability of their identities is increasingly difficult, especially given the possibility that some may have been described or determined in neighboring countries, which prevents the level of rigor we wish for the purposes of this catalogue. We are aware that these morphospecies represent real biological entities and that their exclusion means that the current counts do not realistic reflect the true richness of our fauna. This is also evident due to other factors, such as the large number of undetermined or still unpublished taxa in collections. Nevertheless, it was agreed to prioritize, in this new stage, the diversity that has been formally described in scientific publications.
_____________________________________________
The site is managed by the Arachnology Division of the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences “Bernardino Rivadavia” (MACN, Buenos Aires). For inquiries regarding this tool, please contact Cristian J. Grismado by email (grismado@macn.gov.ar).
Use of this catalogue is limited to research and education; commercial use is not permitted. Colleagues are invited to download, print, or otherwise use the catalogue material for their individual research purposes, provided that the Spider Catalogue of Argentina and the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences “Bernardino Rivadavia” are cited as the source of the information. Users may not copy material from the catalogue into other databases or websites, or otherwise disseminate the information, without authorization from the copyright holder.
Citation: Catálogo de Arañas de Argentina. Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales "Bernardino Rivadavia", online at https://sites.google.com/site/catalogodearanasdeargentina/, accessed on {date of access}.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank all colleagues and friends who generously contributed comments, corrections, or suggestions, and those who provided the photographs that illustrate this site: Luciano Peralta, Gonzalo D. Rubio, Gabriel Pompozzi, Matías A. Izquierdo, Julián Tocce, Lorena Zapata, Nicolás López Carrión, Iván L. Fiorini Magalhaes, Abril Grismado, Paola Favre, Dan Proud, Pierre Oger, Sege Trivero, Ignacio Crudele, Gilberto Ávalos, Claudio Bertonatti, and Pedro H. Martins.