The checklist of Belarusian spiders (Arachnida, Araneae)

Abstract

Spiders represent one of the worst investigated groups of invertebrates in Belarus. Moreover, the majority of data are published in Russian, so it is often inaccessible to the international scientific community. The aim of this paper is to present data on the spider species (Arachnida, Araneae) recorded on the territory of Belarus during the whole period of the study. The data presented therein include both my own data and the data obtained from literature. The focus of the current study was on papers published in Belarus or written by Belarusian scientists. The only exception is Mikhailov’s ‘A checklist of the spiders of Russia and other countries of the former USSR’. The current checklist includes 474 species belonging to 28 families. In spite of the fact that some of the records might be considered doubtful, they were included in the checklist due to the absence of evidence that they are incorrect. That holds true for Atypus affinis Eichwald, 1830, which was recorded in 1928, but no confirmation of its...