Abstracts are provided in the language submitted.

The unregulated and poor conservation measures in addition to the natural causes are the biggest threat to biodiversity in Nigeria. This study aims at providing information on the poorly known spiders of Nigeria. This work is a combination of data collation, and our sampling work done from 2012 to the present. The data from the present study represent part of the result of an ongoing study on “The national survey of spider fauna of Nigeria”. Data from the ongoing studies are from few locations from Southeast and Southwest zones of Nigeria. The sampling work in southeast was done once a month for a period of one year across the two (wet and dry) seasons in Nigeria. The checklist records a total of 240 species, 142 genera in 36 families from 20 locations across the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria. In addition to two new species that are yet to be described. Salticidae was the dominant family representing 34% of the total spider species in Nigeria. The species richness per family showed Salticidae with 83 species, Linyphiidae 30 species and Araneidae 26 species respectively. Southwest stood as the most studied zone in Nigeria with most diversity. There were new additions to the spider families in Nigeria with every major sampling effort. It could be concluded from the result that very little is known of Nigeria spiders due to very little work done so far. Finally, the findings of this study provide a comprehensive data on Nigeria spiders.

Dr. Ogonna Nwankwo