Kuang-Ping Yu ^1,2 Zita Roithmair ^3,4 Jillian Kurovski ⁵ Simon J. Connolly ³ Cor Vink ⁶ J. C. Johnson ⁷ Simona Kralj-Fišer ^8,9 Matjaz Kuntner ^1,10,11,8 Eileen A. Hebets ⁵ Christina J. Painting ^3,4*

• ¹ Department of Organisms and Ecosystems Research, National Institute of Biology (NIB), Ljubljana, Slovenia
• ² Department of Biology, Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
• ³ Te Aka Mātuatua School of Science, University of Waikato, Hamilton, Waikato, New Zealand
• ⁴ Te Punaha Matatini (New Zealand), Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
• ⁵ School of Biological Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Illinois, United States
• ⁶ Department of Pest-management and Conservation, Faculty of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Lincoln University, Lincoln, Canterbury, New Zealand
• ⁷ School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences, New College, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States
• ⁸ Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Ljubljana, Slovenia
• ⁹ Department of Biodiversity, Faculty of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Information Technologies, University of Primorska, Koper, Slovenia
• ¹⁰ Department of Entomology, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (SI), Washington, California, United States
• ¹¹ State Key Laboratory of Biocatalysis and Enzyme Engineering, College of Life Sciences, Hubei University, Wuhan, Hubei Province, China

Dolomedes Latreille, 1804 may easily be considered to be among the most charismatic spider taxa. Known colloquially as fishing or raft spiders, this clade of dolomedid cursorial hunters is speciose with about 100 valid species names. Most Dolomedes are large spiders that inhabit water bodies across all continents except Antarctica and, interestingly, South America. Dolomedes have captured the attention of researchers and the public alike for their ability to walk on and submerge under water, fish for prey (including small vertebrates), and for their often-bizarre mating behavior that includes examples of male spontaneous death and sexual cannibalism. In this review, we critically evaluate what is known of Dolomedes biology, focusing on their systematics and morphology, ecology, and behavior, and conservation. Given their close association with water, Dolomedes may be particularly vulnerable to the impacts of anthropogenic change and provide an important group of indicator species for understanding the effect of pollution, habitat loss and climate change. We outline a roadmap for future studies that, in our view, will consolidate Dolomedes as an ideal model lineage among spiders for addressing a vast array of questions across multiple fields of biology.