The spiders of the Swartberg Nature Reserve in South Africa (Arachnida: Araneae)

Abstract

The Swartberg Nature Reserve is situated in the Large Swartberg mountain range, in the Oudtshoorn district of the Western Cape Province. Spiders were collected from the reserve over a 10-year period. This is one of the inventory projects of the South African National Survey (SANSA) for spiders of the Succulent Karoo Biome. A total of 45 families comprising 136 genera and 186 species were collected, all which are new records for the area. This represents about 9.4 % of the total known South African spider fauna. Of the spiders collected 142 species (76.5 %) were wanderers and 44 (23.5 %) web dwellers. The plant dwellers comprised 43.3 % of the total number of species and the ground dwellers 56.7 %. The Gnaphosidae was the most diverse family represented by 33 species, followed by the Salticidae with 23 and Thomisidae with 15. Ten species are possibly new to science and the Filistatidae is a first record for South Africa. An annotated checklist with information on the guilds, habitat preference and web types are provided.