Filmer's Spiders

Book excerpt: Fully revised and updated, Filmer’s Spiders: an Identification Guide to Southern Africa features all 63 families of spider that occur in this region. A fresh layout, full-colour photographs throughout – many of them new – and diagrams of diagnostic features make this a quick and easy guide for use in the field. The spiders are grouped into web-living, ground-living and plant-Iiving species to aid identification. Each family is described in terms of the spiders’ lifestyle, habitat, size, behaviour and venom potential, and the best collecting methods are given in each case. For those species whose venom is potentially harmful to man, the effects and recommended treatment of bites are discussed. This handy format book will appeal to anybody wishing to gain insight into the daily lives of spiders.