Spider species are mainly delimited through the morphology of their genitals (epigynum and palpal bulb). Thus, oftentimes it is hard to ID spider observations just from a photo of the overall body alone.
A lot of spider descriptions also rely on decades/centuries old museum specimen. The coloration of these specimens stored in alcohol have washed away which makes it difficult to match the description with photos of live ones. Furthermore, many descriptions only includes illustration of the genitals only, without any of the whole body. Hence, this project is created to compile observations of spiders which also includes a picture of their genitals.

The main aim of this project is to match the spider genitals with how they look like when they are alive. Thus, a picture of when the spider was alive is very desirable though it is not made mandatory. less ↑