As a biodiversity hotspot in tropical Asia, Borneo is a must‑visit destination of naturalists around the world. Borneo’s rainforests offer more than just hornbills, orang‑utans, proboscis monkeys and pygmy elephants; they support a more spectacular myriad of insects, arachnids and other invertebrates. With rarely seen macro‑photography images, we take readers on a journey of discovery of another dimension of Borneo’s appeal to all nature lovers: the rich diversity of Borneo’s spiders and the fascinating natural history of these enigmatic and charismatic creatures.
The increasing availability of macro‑photography equipment and popularity of the social media in recent years have bred a new generation of spider enthusiasts in Southeast Asia. They are constantly documenting the morphological details and behavioural peculiarities of spiders. Although some of them have benefitted from the recent series of guidebooks on Bornean and Southeast Asian spiders, there is still a strong demand for a new book, partly because the more popular books are already out of stock. More importantly, advances in macro‑photography techniques and in taxonomic studies of Sarawak and Sabah spiders in recent years have necessitated a major revision.
We have illustrated over 540 species of spiders in this book, building upon the texts and some of the images in “Spiders of Borneo — With Special Reference to Brunei”. We hope that this vastly enhanced photographic guide will help to focus regional and international attention on the need to protect the rainforests in Southeast Asia, and add further impetus to advance the vision underlined in the “Heart of Borneo” initiative.