Spiders of the Chihuahuan Desert of Southern New Mexico and Western Texas (Report‪)‬

Although 80% of the Chihuahuan Desert occurs in Mexico (Ricketts et al., 1999), the 20% that occurs in the United States encompasses a variety of habitats. These include desert with creosotebushes (Larrea tridentata), dunes with mesquites (Prosopis), mountain slopes, mountains, grasslands, playa lakes, riparian areas and washes, pure sand dunes, and rocky outcrops. The northern one-third of the Chihuahuan Desert is the Trans-Pecos subregion and covers parts of northern Mexico, southern New Mexico, and western Texas (Ricketts et al., 1999). Over this area, there have been ecological or biogeographical studies that have included arachnids such as scorpions (Shelley and Sissom, 1995), solifugids (Muma, 1979; Brookhart and Brantley, 2000), harvestmen (Mackay et al., 1992), and mites (Cepeda-Pizarro and Whitford, 1989), but only a few have focused on spiders (Muma, 1975; Gertsch and Riechert, 1976; Broussard and Horner, 2006; Lightfoot et al., 2008). Over the past 30 years, we collected spiders in different habitats within the Chihuahuan Desert on the Jornada del Muerto of southern New Mexico and have compiled a list of species from museum holdings at New Mexico State University and the University of New Mexico. Goals of our research were to describe the spider fauna, to compare our list of species to those of previous researchers in the area (Muma, 1975; Gertsch and Riechert, 1976; Broussard and Horner, 2006), and to assess habitat and seasonal associations of species in the Chihuahuan Desert of the United States.