Abstract:

Aim: Notwithstanding talk of a “taxonomic impediment” over the past 30 years, the exponential growth in the global number of newly described spider species during the 1975-2000 period has continued unabated. This paper focuses on the advances in taxonomic studies of spiders in 2022 worldwide, with detailed statistical analyses of new taxa, type localities, arachnologists driving such research, and journals publishing their work.

Progress: A total of 1,177 new taxa (including species in amber) were described in 2022, comprising 81 new genera and 1,096 new species. They belong to 74 families, with type localities spanning across 97 countries and jurisdictions. The new taxa were documented by 340 arachnologists in 289 papers, published separately in 60 journals. Out of these 289 papers, 23 or 8% comprised monographs, regional studies, and revisions of selected higher taxa (at family and genus levels). The proportion of papers incorporating DNA analyses made up 18.3% (totaling 53 papers). China is the country with the highest number of new species discovered, a total of 362, accounting for 33.0% of the global tally. With as many as 75 arachnologists naming new spider taxa, China becomes the country with the highest number of publishing spider taxonomists, accounting for 22.1% of the world’s total. Among them, the most prolific arachnologist is Shuqiang Li who described a total of 194 new taxa, accounting for 16.5% of the new taxa described in 2022 worldwide. Altogether, Li and his remaining 74 Chinese colleagues described a total of 436 new taxa, comprising 26 new genera and 410 new species belonging to 50 families, from China, Myanmar, and eight other countries and jurisdictions. These new taxa described by Chinese arachnologists made up 37.0% of the 2022 global aggregate, an improvement over the Chinese output 2021 (33.8%) and during the 2016-2020 period (28.1% on average).

Key words: taxonomy, new genus, new species, distribution, biodiversity