Spiders from Western Samoa

Summary Two visits to Western Samoa, totalling some four months, were devoted to the intensive collecting of spiders. 90 species were collected, of which 32 are new and six are new records for the islands though recorded elsewhere. Four males and three females are described belonging to species known previously only from the other sex. Representatives of eight families not previously recorded were found, one family being described as new, the Tamasesiidae. The total number of species now recorded from Western Samoa is 123, a much larger number than that reported for other island groups in the south-west Pacific. The conclusion drawn is that knowledge of the Bpider fauna of this region is still too incomplete for anything but the most tentantive zoogeographical speculations to be made.