A list of spider species found in the Addo Elephant National Park, Eastern Cape province, South Africa

Abstract

The knowledge of spiders in the Eastern Cape province lags behind that of most other South African provinces. The Eastern Cape province is renowned for its conservation areas, as the largest part of the Albany Centre of Endemism falls within this province. This article provides a checklist for the spider fauna of the Addo Elephant National Park, one of the most prominent conservation areas of the Eastern Cape, to detail the species found in the park and determine their conservation status and level of endemicity based on their known distribution. Various collecting methods were used to sample spiders between 1974 and 2016. Forty-seven families that include 184 genera and 276 species were recorded. Thomisidae (39 spp.), Araneidae (39 spp.), Salticidae (35 spp.) and Theridiidae (25 spp.) were the most species-rich families, while 14 families were only represented by a single species.

Conservation implications: A total of 12.7% of the South African spider fauna and 32.9% of the Eastern Cape fauna are protected in the park; 26.4% are South African endemics, and of these, 3.6% are Eastern Cape endemics. Approximately, 4% of the species are possibly new to science, and 240 species are recorded from the park for the first time.