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A Checklist of Spiders (Arachnida: Araneae) of Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, India

2003; Zoological Survey of India; Volume: 101; Issue: 3-4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.26515/rzsi/v101/i3-4/2003/159543

0375-1511

Pawan Gajbe,

Lepidoptera: Biology and Taxonomy

Jabalpur district lies in the eastern half of the state of Madhya Pradesh.A checklist of 88 species of spiders belonging to 18 families from Jabalpur is given.The checklist includes spider species collected in and around Jabalpur and identified by the author during July, 1997 to December, 2000.Some species collected by the scientists of Central Regional Station, Zoological Survey of India, Jabalpur have also been included in the list.Area-specific studies on the Indian araneae have been conducted by naturalists like Pocock (1900), Tikader(1970, 1977, 1980, 1982), Patel (1975), Tikader & Biswas (1981) and Gajbe & Rane (1992).However, spider fauna of Jabalpur was almost unknown before Gajbe & Gajbe (1999,2000) and Bhandari & Gajbe (2001), who have described many new species of spiders from Jabalpur, thus, adding to our knowledge of the Indian araneae.For the study, spiders were looked for in a variety of habitats such as cultivated fields, woods, hills, orchards, human dwellings, old buildings, gardens, fallow land and around water bodies like ponds and tanks.Specimens were also looked for under stones and loose bark, in leaf litter, on flowers and on the ground.Some spiders were hand collected, for collecting some, a sweep net was used, while many spiders were obtained by beating bushes with a stick and then collecting the falling spiders in an inverted umbrella.The spiders were preserved in 70% ethyl alcohol in small glass vials with screw caps.Each vial was provided with a label having the name of type-locality, collector's name and date of collection recorded on it.The spiders were examined under a binocular microscope and identified with the help of literature.The type specimens collected are deposited in the National Collection, Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata.A total of 88 species of spiders belonging to 54 genera distributed in 18 families were recorded (Table-I).The family Araneidae (21 species) was the largest group, followed by Thomisidae (14 species), Gnaphosidae ( 13 species), Lycosidae (1 0 species), Philodromidae (7 species) and Oxyopidae (5 species).