Your FAQs
What is our definition of ‘Caucasus’?
There are more than one definitions of ‘Caucasus’. Some refer to regions in and around the mountains of the ‘Great Caucasus’ between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, while others define ‘Caucasus’ as the mountains of the ‘Great Caucasus’ only.
We use ‘Caucasus’ in the sense of ‘Caucasia’ or ‘Caucasus Region’, including Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the North-Caucasus areas (Russia (districts Krasnodar and Stavropol), Adygea, Karatshai-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North-Osetia, Ingushetia, Chechenya, Dagestan). Altogether the area concerned covers more than 450,000 square kilometers, somewhat less than the size of Spain.
How accurate are our map-points?
The geographical Information on spider records in the Caucasus varies a great deal. There are records with exact coordinates including the altitude above sea level as well as records refering to ‘Batumi’ or ‘Caucasus’ only. Also, as finding places and coordinates takes a lot of time we decided to give the coordinates of the nearest village, city or larger geographical site (e. g. river mouth, mountain, …) rather than giving the maximum accurate coordinates possible, although in most cases published records are not much more accurate than our accuracy-level.
Therefore, the distribution maps available for each species should give a good idea of the species’ known distribution. For anybody in search of the exact coordinates we advise to refer to the original publications which are also cited together with each record or to contact us.
Which version is this?
Version 1.3 (November 13th, 2006)
previous versions:
Version 1.2 (June 22nd, 2006)
Version 1.1 (May 1st, 2006)
Version 1.0 (April 10th, 2006)
How to cite this reference?
Otto, S. & Dietzold, S. (2006). Caucasian Spiders. A faunistic database on the spiders of the Caucasus. Version 1.3, http://caucasus-spiders.info
