Svenska Spindlar

The full title of the work is Svenska Spindlar uti sina hufvud-slägter indelte samt under några och sextio särskildte arter beskrefne och med illuminerade figurer uplyste – Aranei Svecici, descriptionibus et figuris æneis illustrati, ad genera subalterna redacti, speciebus ultra LX determinati,[1] ("Swedish spiders into their main genera separated, and as sixty and a few particular species described and with illuminated figures illustrated") and included 162 pages of text (eight pages were unpaginated) and six colour plates.

Clerck described in detail 67 species of Swedish spiders,[2] and for the first time in a zoological work consistently applied binomial nomenclature as proposed by Carl Linnaeus.

Clerck explained in the last (9th of the 2nd part) chapter of his work that in contrast to previous authors he used the term "spider" in the strict sense, for animals possessing eight eyes and separated prosoma and opisthosoma, and that his concept of this group of animals did not include Opiliones (because they had two eyes and a broadly joined prosoma and opisthosoma) and other groups of arachnids.

Each species was illustrated in impressively accurate drawings printed on coloured copper plates which were bound at the end of the volume.

Because of the exceptionally thorough treatment of the spider species, the scientific names proposed by Clerck (which were adopted by Carl Linnaeus in his Systema Naturae in 1758 with only minor modifications) had traditionally been recognized by arachnologists as binomial and available.