Description
Currently there are over 50,000 described spider species worldwide according to the world spider catalog (WSC). The study of spiders in Kenya is not well done and as of December 2018, 805 species were described from the region. Some of the species were considered nomen dubium and others described from juvenile species which are at best considered misidentified. The data presented here is a checklist of spider species described from Kenya up-to May of 2022. The species are described from Kenya and other regions of the world with some considered to be cosmopolitan. A total of 801 species from 58 families are represented in the data set. 320 out of the 801 species from this data set are considered endemic to Kenya. 84 species are genus types. The families Salticidae and Linyphiidae had the most species representatives i.e. 163 and 109 species respectively. The bracketed scientific name authorship represent species that have either been transferred to a new/different genus or have been synonymized with other species but maintain the original author. Letters in the scientific name authorship distinguish articles from authors who made multiple publications within the same year.
Data Records
The data in this checklist resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 802 records.
This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.
Versions
The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.
How to cite
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
Kioko G, Sese J (2022): A checklist dataset of the spider species from Kenya. v1.1. National Museums of Kenya. Dataset/Checklist. http://ipt.museums.or.ke/ipt/resource?r=spider_gk&v=1.1
Rights
Researchers should respect the following rights statement:
The publisher and rights holder of this work is National Museums of Kenya. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC 4.0) License.
GBIF Registration
This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 3d04d37a-d861-461f-8c5b-8b96faf68148. National Museums of Kenya publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF Kenya.
Keywords
Arachnida; Araneae; checklist; Species; Kenya
Contacts
- Metadata Provider ●
- Originator ●
- Point Of Contact
- Research Scientist, Zoology Department
- Museum Hill Road
- +254718285925
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4932-3631
- Originator
- Data Clerk, Zoology Department
- Museum Hill Road
- +254743147287
- Distributor
- Research Scientist
Geographic Coverage
The specimens represented here are from various locations in Kenya. Nine counties (Busia, Garissa, Kisii, Lamu, Mandera, Migori, Nandi, Siaya, and Vihiga) had no species records while the remaining 38 counties had records of species collection.
| Bounding Coordinates | South West [-90, -180], North East [90, 180] |
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Taxonomic Coverage
Several families from the class Arachnida.
| Class | Arachnida |
|---|---|
| Order | Araneae |
| Family | Agelenidae, Anapidae, Araneidae, Atypidae, Barychelidae, Caponiidae, Cheiracanthiidae, Cithaeronidae, Clubionidae, Corinnidae, Ctenidae, Cyatholipidae, Cyrtaucheniidae, Deinopidae, Dictynidae, Eresidae, Gnaphosidae, Hahniidae, Hersiliidae, Idiopidae, Ischnothelidae, Linyphiidae, Liocranidae, Lycosidae, Migidae, Mimetidae, Miturgidae, Mysmenidae, Ochyroceratidae, Oecobiidae, Oonopidae, Oxyopidae, Palpimanidae, Philodromidae, Pholcidae, Phyxelididae, Pisauridae, Prodidomidae, Pycnothelidae, Salticidae, Scytodidae, Segestriidae, Sicariidae, Sparassidae, Telemidae, Tetrablemmidae, Tetragnathidae, Theraphosidae, Theridiidae, Theridiosomatidae, Thomisidae, Trachelidae, Trochanteriidae, Uloboridae, Zodariidae, Zoropsidae |
Temporal Coverage
| Start Date / End Date | 1800-01-01 / 2022-01-01 |
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Sampling Methods
The dataset from this checklist was compiled from an online resource World Spider Catalog (2022). This was done by checking for data from distribution areas within Kenya, East Africa and Africa. Publications from East Africa and Africa were downloaded and checked if Kenya was listed as a collection locality. TaxonID/acceptedNameUsageID and parentNameUsageID used are similar to identifiers from WSC for easy search in the catalog. The spider checklist from Kenya published in 2021 was also a useful resource in data compilation for this checklist data.
| Study Extent | Specimen in the checklist were collected from various parts of Kenya with 38 out of the 47 counties having species representations. |
|---|---|
| Quality Control | The WSC is a site where all taxonomic papers on spiders are listed and its updated daily. The papers are from skilled arachnologists and from peer reviewed papers. |
Method step description:
- Data mined from the World Spider Catalog was aligned to the Darwin Core Standard (taxon). The standardized data was then validated and uploaded to GBIF through the IPT.
Bibliographic Citations
- Kioko, G. M., Marusik, Y. M., Li, S. Q., Kioko, E. N. & Ji, L. Q. (2021). Checklist of the spiders (Araneae) of Kenya. African Invertebrates 62(1): 49-229. doi: 10.3897/AfrInvertebr.62.58776
- World Spider Catalog (2022). World Spider Catalog. Version 23.0. Natural History Museum Bern, online at http://wsc.nmbe.ch, accessed on {26th May 2022}. doi: 10.24436/2
Additional Metadata
| Purpose | The checklist is an important dataset in the study of spiders as it highlights the species described from Kenya. In addition, it helps to show the gaps of taxonomy study in the region and therefore promoting study in the area. |
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| Alternative Identifiers | http://ipt.museums.or.ke/ipt/resource?r=spider_gk |