SANSA NEWS South African National Survey of Arachnida JAN-JUNE 2013 No. 18 FIRST NATIONAL ARACHNID SPECIES LISTS The South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) is coordinating the compilation of the first nation- al check lists of South Africa’s animals for dissemination through the Biodiversity Advisor. The lists, once compiled, will be regularly updated by specialists according to the latest taxonomic literature. The check- lists are being incorporated into the South African Biodiversity Information Facility (SABIF) and Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) infrastructure/portals. A national list of species names arranged according to an accepted classification system provides an essential framework for a range of projects, products and processes in the biological sciences including the Encyclopedia of Life, SABIF, iSpot, virtual Inside this issue: museums, Red List assessments, primary databases, and for use by a wide range of researchers using species names. First national species lists ………...…1 The arachnologists at Biosystematics participated in this project and, in a joined team effort, compiled the 19th International Congress……….....2 first national lists for all nine Arachnida orders occurring in South Africa, a total of 3935 species. With the Role of photographers …………….....3 species names, information was also provided on synonyms, distribution and common names. Interesting Virtual Museum stories…..4 New books on spiders……………..….5 Contact: Ansie Dippenaar-Schoeman at [email protected] Visitors from abroad ………………….6-7 Type list …………………………….….7 Cyrtophora citricola………. …………..8 Limbovane outreach project………….9 Sampling in the Northern Cape.…….10 New records for South Africa………..11-12 Publications……………………….. …13 Vernon Crookes Nature Reserve …..14 Beautiful spiders ….………………….15 Peter Webb Peter Webb Opiliones (196 spp., 8 families) Scorpiones (101 spp., 3 families) Editorial team: Ansie Dippenaar-Schoeman ARC-PPRI, Private Bag X134 Queenswood 0121 South Africa Aart Louw Email: [email protected] Amblypygi (3 spp., 1 family) Pseudoscorpiones (145 spp., 15 families) Charles Haddad Email: [email protected] Robin Lyle Email: [email protected] Petro Marais Email: [email protected] Peter Webb Peter Webb Araneae (2030 spp., 70 families) Solifugae (141 spp., 6 families) SANSA NEWS 18 th 19 International Congress of Arachnology CONGRATULATIONS From 23–28 June 2013 a delegation of South African researchers attended the 19th International Congress of Arachnology at the How- ard Beach Resort, Kenting National Park in Taiwan. The congress was very well organised by I-Min Tso and his team, and was attend- ed by 231 delegates from 42 countries. Two of the plenary talks had some bearing on South African spiders: Yael Lubin presented on group living in spiders, including some reference to social Stegody- phus species, while Matjaz Kuntner presented on the phylogenetic Charles Haddad was elected on history of nephilid spiders. The South African researcher’s presenta- the ISA council for the next tions were well received and considerable feedback was received three years on SANSA and other projects. One of the highlights of the congress was Gonzalo Giribet’s presentation on the first phylogenetic analy- sis of Palpigradi, which attracted a large audience. This included two South African palpigrades, whose collecting localities are unfor- tunately unknown! On Wednesday, the traditional break day from congress activities, excursions were organised for the Nan-Jen Lake Ecological Re- serve, Sheding Park and the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium. This gave delegates the opportunity to experience the tropical forests of Taiwan and collect some exotic spiders. Since no formal activities were planned for the evenings, except the con- gress dinner on Thursday, delegates were able to spend a lot of Jan-Andries Neethling received time at the Night Market in Kenting, where a wide variety of foods the second prize for best stu- and stalls were available. dent paper in the Systematics and Evolution category On a positive note, Jan-Andries Neethling received the second prize for student presentations in the category “Systematics and Evolu- tion” for his work on South African Geogarypidae pseudoscorpions. During the meeting of the International Society of Arachnology, Charles Haddad was elected to the Council of the Society and will serve for the next three years. The next congress will be held in the U.S.A. in 2016. The following posters and papers dealt with South African arachnid fauna: PRESENTATIONS DIPPENAAR-SCHOEMAN, A.S., LYLE, R.*, HADDAD, C.R., FOORD, S.H. & LOTZ, L.N. The South African National Survey of Arachnida (SANSA) – the way forward. FOORD, S.H.* & DIPPENAAR-SCHOEMAN, A.S. Drivers of spider diversity along an altitudinal transect in a floristic kingdom sensitive to climate change. GIRIBET, G.*, CHRISTIAN, E., FRANCKE, O.F., HARVEY, M.S., KOVAC, L., McCUTCHEN, L., SOUZA, M.F.V.R., FERREIRA, R.L. & ZAGMAJSTER, M. The first phylogenetic analysis of Palpigradi – the most enigmatic arthropod order. HADDAD, C.R.*, DIPPENAAR-SCHOEMAN, A.S., FOORD, S.H., LOTZ, L.N. & LYLE, R. The faunistic diversity of spiders (Arachnida: Araneae) of the Grassland Biome in South Africa. KUNTNER, M. A model spider lineage: reconstructing its past and predicting its future. LOTZ, L.N. The family Agelenidae (Araneae) in the South African National Survey of Arachnida (SANSA) Atlas. LUBIN, Y. Group living in spiders, revisited. NEETHLING, J.A.*, HADDAD, C.R. & HARVEY, M.S. A revision of the South African Geogarypidae (Arachnida: Pseudoscorpiones). POSTER LYLE, R.* & DIPPENAAR-SCHOEMAN, A.S. A taxonomic revision of Afrotropical genera of the trapdoor spider family Idiopidae Robin Lyle and Ansie Dippenaar-Schoeman’s poster on the Idiopidae. Most of the images were provided by Peter Webb. (Araneae: Idiopinae). 2 SANSA NEWS 18 THE IMPORTANT ROLE OF GOOD PHOTOS IN SCIENCE The digital camera has opened up a new world in science. As Some images from Vida van der Walt’s jumper gallery part of the Virtual Museum of SANSA we are receiving the most incredible photos of spiders from areas throughout the country. Not only do the photographers contribute by photographing speci- mens, but each record also contributes to documenting the distri- bution of the species for the Spider Atlas and Red Listing projects that are presently underway. These images have enabled us to publish a number of good science handbooks, including “Spiders of the Kalahari”, “Spiders of the Savanna Biome”, and “Spiders of the Grassland Biome” (in prep.), “Crab spiders of South Africa” (in prep) and the new “Spider Field Guide” to be published Decem- ber 2013, which includes > 2000 photographs. We are also pro- ducing the SANSA news, fact sheets, poster series, spider of the week etc. using these photos. All this information will eventually feed into the Encyclopedia of Life and the Red Listing projects of Baryphas ahenus SANBI, where a page for each species is planned. Images are also needed for each specimen submitted for DNA barcoding. SANSA is still actively sampling and documenting our arachnid fauna and any photographs are very welcome. The identification of spiders from images is not always easy, and a lot of changes are taking place in spider classification as a result of new revisions. With the Virtual Museum being a data- base, we are trying to update data regularly, as can be seen with name changes in the Corinnidae and Salticidae, for example. We have extensive photographic documentation from several Dendryphantes rafalskii areas in South Africa. From Mpetsane Conservation Estate near Clocolan in the Free State we have >1500 photographs of grass- land spiders taken by Allen Jones. He also recorded the first Cyrtarachne sp. in his garden showing their “spanning web” (see SANSA news 8:15). He also has excellent photographs of a large number of orb-web dwellers, not only documenting their webs but interesting behaviour (see SANSA news 16:6-7). He was also the first to record a fiscal shrike feeding on baboon spiders and soli- fugids (see SANSA news 9:12). From the Irene grasslands Peter Webb has recorded >2000 pho- tographs, recording a number of “firsts” for the area. Peter ob- Phlegra karoo served for the first time the “cheliceral flashing defense behav- iour“ of the burrowing wolf spiders (Hogna spp.) (see p 4) and the “web turn-around” of Argiope spiders (see SANSA 8:10 ). Peter is also helping document the arachnid fauna in different parts of the country, e.g. the Northern Cape (see p 10). Linda Wiese has created an excellent photographic database on the spiders of the Eastern Cape, especially from Jeffrey’s Bay and the Addo Nation- al Park. Esther van der Westhuizen used photography to help record the spiders sampled for the DNA barcoding project, etc. Other photographers have an interest in certain spider families, such as Vida van der Walt with her love for jumping spiders. Vida, with the help of Charles Haddad and Peter Webb, is building up Hyllus argyrotoxus an excellent database of the Salticidae of South Africa. This data was extensively used in the production of the new Field Guide and will be of great value for the newly proposed Salticidae pro- ject between South Africa and Russia. Martie Rheeder focuses her attention on the thomisid crab spiders. We are still looking for good photo- graphs, especially of rare spiders, We are very grateful for all the photographers who share their contributions with us, and who allow the data to be used to docu- for the Spider Field Guide. Anybody ment and learn more about our spiders. Every contribution is valuable, whether it comes from Modimolle or Kommetjie; some- interested in participating and shar- where it will fit in to help complete the puzzle. ing their photographs with us can There has been some delay in adding new images to the SANSA please forward them to Ansie. Virtual Museum. ARC now has a new server and is currently upgrading to new software for the database.