The World Spider Catalog contains over 53,000 scientifically described spider species – a significant part of global biodiversity. Each species’ name is listed, along with its original descriptions, origin and references to supporting material. This allows researchers around the world to clearly identify species and build on this knowledge. The catalog is operated by the Natural History Museum of Bern and is freely accessible at wsc.nmbe.ch.
From a mountain of books to a digital source of knowledge
The basis for the catalog was created between 1942 and 1998 in the form of four comprehensive books spanning more than 12,000 pages. Although impressive, they were unwieldy and no longer fit for purpose. In the mid-1990s, US arachnologist Professor Norman Platnick recognized the potential of the emerging internet and published the first electronic World Spider Catalog in 2000 – at the time with around 38,000 known species.
Since 2014, the Natural History Museum of Bern has taken over the catalog and put it on a modern database. What is unique is that the catalog also incorporates the complete scientific literature on the species: more than 18,000 specialist articles are available to registered users, which is possible thanks to Swiss copyright regulations.
Biodiversity – and no end in sight
“Spiders show us how rich nature is and how much we still don’t know,” says the World Spider Catalog team. Each new species provides a piece of the puzzle to help us better understand and protect ecosystems. The first spider species was described in 1757, and knowledge has expanded rapidly ever since. Over the last 25 years, 15,000 new species have been added, with an average of 600 per year, and the discovery rate continues to increase. Experts once estimated that there could be around 100,000 species of spiders worldwide. Today, it is clear that the actual diversity is likely to be much higher.
The World Spider Catalog is financed in collaboration with a dozen specialist arachnological societies and maintained by international teams of experts. The platform is accessed around 1,100 times a day and has 17,000 registered users worldwide – there are a lot of spider experts out there!
If you have any questions, please contact: Professor Christian Kropf, Head and Curator of Biosciences at the Natural History Museum Basel, +41 61 266 55 44, christian.kropf@bs.ch
