We love all creatures with eight legs or more and research the diversity of arachnids (spiders, scorpions and their kin), myriapods (millipedes and centipedes), and some living zoological enigmas such as the tardigrades and velvet worms.
The Arachnida and Myriapoda are amongst the most diverse animal lineages on Earth and include prominent examples such as the spiders, scorpions, mites, ticks, millipedes and centipedes. Our team researches these fascinating creatures and investigates their biodiversity, evolutionary history, ecology, morphology, and role in natural ecosystems. We love diversity, both in the animals we study and the research methods that we use.
Our ever-changing team of arachnophiles employs a broad range or research techniques and approaches. Collaboration anc curiousity are key!
We discover arachnid biodiversity almost on a daily basis and describe many new species each year, but also investigate its origins using a combination of molecular methods (e.g. DNA sequencing), morphology (e.g. Synchrotron analyses), ecology (e.g. Monitoring projects) and palaeontology. Our research is founded upon our rich specimen collections of more than 1 million animals from all parts of the world. These collections comprise both recently collected and historical material. We work in a strictly collaborative manner with partnering institutions and researchers from across the world, and within Germany. We enjoy field work, love our zoological collections, and tell the stories of nature from an arachnid perspective.
Our ongoing research in arachnid evolution, systematics, morphology and ecology.
The diversity of our research is highlighted by ongoing projects in the section. Currently, we are researching various groups of arachnids and leading projects on both tropical and native spiders as well as lesser known groups such as the pseudoscorpions, schizomids, whip spiders and scorpions. Some of these projects have a strong applied connection to biological conservation, especially in the tropical biomes of the world. Section leader Danilo Harms is a taxonomic expert for pseudoscorpions - the small relatives of scorpions - and many of his students work on pseudoscorpion biodiversity and evolution. Collection manager Nadine Dupérré is an expert on spiders and has described several hundred species to date. Our students and postdocs also work on scorpions and ticks, with projects investigating their ecology, systematics and palaeontology. We also collaborate in several large-scale projects with partnering institutions such as universities and research museums.
Related collections
Contact person
Projects
BIO-GEEC: The German-Ecuadorian Consortium for Biodiversity (Stage 1)
Management: Dr. Danilo Harms
Publications
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2025/12
The world’s most venomous spider is a species complex: systematics of the Sydney funnel-web spider (Atracidae: Atrax robustus)
BMC Ecology and Evolution, 1, 25
2025/1
Systematics of the colour-polymorphic spider genus Cybaeolus, with comments on the phylogeny of the family Hahniidae (Araneae)
Zoological journal of the Linnean Society
2024/12
To pool or not to pool: Pooled metabarcoding does not affect estimates of prey diversity in spider gut content analysis
Ecological Entomology, 6, 49
2024/11
A redescription of the Pacific Bounty hunter, Pacificana cockayni Hogg, 1904 and an attempt to reunite with its family.
New Zealand Journal of Zoology
2024/11
Afrogarypus foordi sp. nov. – a new pseudoscorpion species (Pseudoscorpiones, Geogarypidae) from South Africa
African Invertebrates, 2, 65
2024/10
Two new species of the spider genus Loxosceles (Araneae, Sicariidae) from the Ecuadorian Andes
Evolutionary Systematics, 8
2024/10
Seven new species of the enigmatic spider genus Paratropis Simon, 1889 (Mygalomorphae, Paratropididae) from Ecuador
Zootaxa, 4, 5519
2024/10
German Barcode of Life, Entdeckung und Beschreibung neuer Arten
2024/10
The ASV Registry: a place for ASVs to be
Metabarcoding and Metagenomics, 8
2024/8
Integrative characterisation of the Northwestern European species of Anacharis Dalman, 1823 (Hymenoptera, Cynipoidea, Figitidae) with the description of three new species
Journal of Hymenoptera Research, 97
2024/8
Spiders as natural DNA samplers can recover arthropod community diversity and biotic interactions across space and time
2024/8
Exkursion in den Kaukasus: Der CaBOL BioBlitz 2022 in Armenien und Georgien
2024/6
Path for recovery: an ecological overview of the Jambato Harlequin Toad (Bufonidae: Atelopus ignescens) in its last known locality, Angamarca Valley, Ecuador
PeerJ, 12
2024/6
Preserving morphology while extracting DNA: a non-destructive field-to-museum protocol for slide-mounted specimens
Biodiversity Data Journal, 12
2024/6
Tectonically driven climate change and the spread of temperate biomes: Insights from dragon pseudoscorpions (Pseudotyrannochthoniidae), a globally distributed arachnid lineage
Journal of Biogeography, 6, 51
2024/6
First fossil species of family Hyidae (Arachnida: Pseudoscorpiones) confirms 99 million years of ecological stasis in a Gondwanan lineage
PeerJ, 12
2024/5
The pseudoscorpion genus Nipponogarypus (Pseudoscorpiones, Olpiidae) found in seashore habitats in Japan and Korea
Zoosystematics and Evolution, 3, 100
2024/4
Description of a new Psalmopoeus Pocock, 1895 species (Araneae, Theraphosidae, Psalmopoeinae) from the Chocó region of Ecuador
Zootaxa, 4, 5437
2024/4
New species of the pseudoscorpion genus Pararoncus (Pseudoscorpiones, Syarinidae) from Korea
Evolutionary Systematics, 1, 8
2024/3
Four new species of Utivarachna Kishida, 1940 (Araneae: Trachelidae) from Sumatra
Zootaxa, 5, 5418
2024/3
Leibniz Research Network Biodiversity. (2024). 10 Must Knows from Biodiversity Science 2024 (Version 1). Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
2024/2
Another ghost of Gondwana—Progradungula barringtonensis Michalik & Smith, sp. nov., a new species of the relict spider genus Progradungula (Araneae: Gradungulidae) from a temperate rainforest in eastern Australia
Austral Entomology, 1, 63
2024/1
A new Mesozoic record of the pseudoscorpion family Garypinidae from Upper Cretaceous (Santonian) Ajkaite amber, Ajka area, Hungary
153
2024/1
First record of the family Hahniidae in Ecuador with description of thirteen new species and three new genera (Araneae: Hahniidae)
Taxonomy, 1, 4
2024/1
A new species of Ditha (Pseudoscorpiones, Chthoniidae, Tridenchthoniinae) from the Western Ghats of India, with an identification key for the genus
Zoosystematics and Evolution, 1, 100
2025
2024
Employees
Dr. Danilo Harms
ztm Arachnida & Myriapoda ScientistPhone: +49 40 238317 616
E-mail: d.harms@leibniz-lib.de