Opiliones in Belgium(date of publication 14.VI.1999) |
Introduction |
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While the belgian community of eight-legged animals shudders with fear in view
of the next excursion of the flourishing
Arabel (Arachnologia Belgica),
one little group keeps his peace of mind: the Harvestmen.
The majority of arachnologists has lost interest since some simple youth experiments
with the legs. I couldn't beat the knowledge of the Arabel-people,
so I took the Opiliones as my territory. |
Dr. Baert (Royal Institute of Natural Sciences) kindly put the relevant collections at
my disposal. Although Opiliones were never the object of a sampling session,
the bottles were rich enough to keep me happy for several years on row.
I added some material from my own entomological studies and from the former
Laboratory of Oecology (State University Ghent).
When finally the number of Opiliones minded people doubled with W. Slosse, I knew that distribution maps with not too many blancs where within reach. His umbrella sampling-method is very succesful, as proved by the explosion of recent observations in the western part of the country. |
Species list and Distribution maps |
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Some words about the samples |
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In short: We have almost no old observations. Recent sampling forgets the southern part of the country. Read more about the samples |
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More about the number of species |
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In short: The species richness is mostly a reflection of the sampling effort. Maps and discussion |
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The legit names |
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I would be nowhere without the collections of the Royal Institute of Natural Sciences and the people submitting their samples. If you ever donated even only one sample to the R.I.N.S., your name can be on this list. |
The Arachnological Hub of the World Wide Web |
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Visit the Arachnological Hub of the World Wide Web |