| For several
animal and plant taxa, the northern Andes are among the most
species-rich regions in the world. This may also be true for pholcid
spiders, but our knowledge in this respect is very fragmentary.
Colombia and Ecuador are among the most poorly studied countries with
respect to Pholcidae, yet a recent collecting expedition to Ecuador has uncovered dozens of
new species within a few weeks. Extremely high numbers of species have
also been reported from the Venezuelan Andes (Huber & Villarreal 2020). A large project on northern Andean pholcids is planned after preparatory expeditions to Ecuador (2021, 2023) and Colombia (2022, 2023). |