A checklist of the threatened spider species in South Africa (Arachnida: Araneae)

The emerging field of conservation biogeography examines species’ distribution dynamics and their relationship to biodiversity conservation. In South Africa, from 2016 to 2019, a total of 2 265 species from 76 069 records were used for the first time in a conservation assessment. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species Categories and Criteria, which reflect a species’ extinction risk, were used. Only South African species were assessed; Eswatini and Lesotho were excluded. Of the assessed taxa, most species (1 445, 63%) are widely distributed and have no known threats, while 691 species (31%) have insufficient information to make a direct or indirect assessment. Only 60 species (2.6%) were assessed as IUCN Threatened Species: four species (0.1%) are classified as Critically Endangered (CR), 23 species (1.1%) as Endangered (EN), and 33 species (1.4%) as Vulnerable (VU). The South African National Biodiver-sity Institute (SANBI) uses additional categories for South African taxa to highlight species that they are not necessarily threatened but are of high conservation concern due to extreme rarity and 69 species (3%) were listed as such.