Aranei Svecici

The book Svenska Spindlar or Aranei Svecici (Swedish and Latin, respectively, for "Swedish spiders") was one of the major works of the Swedish arachnologist and entomologist Carl Alexander Clerck and appeared in Stockholm in the year 1757. It was the first comprehensive book on the spiders of Sweden and one of the first regional monographs of a group of animals worldwide. The full title of the work was Svenska Spindlar uti sina hufvud-slägter indelte samt under några och sextio särskildte arter beskrefne och med illuminerade figurer uplyste – Aranei Svecici, descriptionibus et figuris æneis illustrati, ad genera subalterna redacti, speciebus ultra LX determinati, ("Swedish spiders into their main genera separated, and as sixty and a few particular species described and with illuminated figures illustrated") and included 162 pages of text (eight pages were unpaginated) and 6 colour plates. It was published in Swedish, with a Latin translation printed in a slightly smaller font below the Swedish text.

Clerck described in detail 67 species of Swedish spiders, and for the first time in a zoological work consistently applied binomial nomenclature, which had been proposed by Carl Linnaeus in his 1753 work Species Plantarum for botanical names, and which he presented in 1758 in the 10th edition of his work Systema Naturae for more than 4,000 animal species.

Svenska Spindlar is the first work to make systematic use of binomial nomenclature, and the only pre-Linnaean source to be recognised as a taxonomic authority for such names.

Clerck explained in the last (9th of the 2nd part) chapter of his work that in contrast to previous authors he used the term "spider" in the strict sense, for animals possessing eight eyes and separated prosoma and opisthosoma, and that his concept of this group of animals did not include Opiliones (because they had two eyes and a broadly joined prosoma and opisthosoma) and other groups of arachnids.

For all spiders Clerck used a single generic name (Araneus), to which was added a specific name which consisted of only one word. Each species was presented in the Swedish text with their Latin scientific names, followed by detailed information containing the exact dates when he had found the animals, and a detailed description of eyes, legs and body. The differences between the sexes were also described. Each species was illustrated in impressively accurate drawings printed on coloured copper plates which were bound at the end of the volume.

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