The role Eugène Simon (1880 –1910) played in spider research in South Africa

Eugène Simon, the well-known French arachnologist, was a prolific spider taxonomist and identified over 4600 species in his career. To obtain specimens for his research in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Simon, who was rich enough, financed his collecting expeditions. He traveled to South Africa on an expedition between February and March 1893. This was the first expedition to sample spiders in South Africa. He frequently also received specimens from other researchers and local people. This enabled him to eventually describe 28 new genera and 185 new species from 42 families in South Africa between 1880 and 1910.