THE ARACHNID’S COLLECTION AT THE MUSEO DE HISTORIA NATURAL DE CONCEPCIÓN: A PRELIMINARY VIEW

Abstract

Since ancient time, the human being has been recognized by collecting objects. The scientific collections are an example of this and which saved worldwide systematic work over three centuries and are of great importance and relevance to the understanding the global biodiversity. Museo Natural de Historia de Concepción (MHNC) founded in 1902 by its first director, the British naturalist Edwin Reed Brookman. Thereafter, the Museum has had several directors and 21 different locations, dodging three major earthquakes in the history of Chile. The main purpose of this study was to know the diversity of orders and families of arachnids that are deposited in the collection of MHNC, which lay the foundation for future works related to this fauna. Taxonomic study was performed with all material deposited in this arachnid collection. For which we followed the criteria published by specialists in each of the groups of arachnids. As a result a total of 462 individuáis were found. From the total, 443 belong to the order Araneae represented by 23 families, 11 belong to the order Opiliones, 6 to the order Scorpiones, 1 to the order Solifugae and also 1 mites of the order Acariformes. These last four orders are each represented by a single family.