List of German names for the spiders of Germany (Araneae)

Abstract

Common names play an important role in the efficient communication of scientific results in biology, for instance in the area of applied conservation science, in popular articles and in Citizen Science projects. Common names can increase the readability of texts aimed at the general public and increase the relatability of the described species. For many groups of invertebrates such names are not generally available and often there are no (published) lists of common names, resulting in different names being used for the same species, thus subverting the aims stated above. Here, we propose common German names for all spider genera and species recorded from Germany, and some whose occurrence is expected in this country. Many of these names are coined here for the first time.