|
Araneomorphae Families
The Araneomorphae (also called the Labidognatha) are an infraorder of spiders. They are distinguishable by chelicerae (fangs) that point diagonally forward and cross in a pinching action, in contrast to the Mygalomorphae (tarantulas and their close kin), where they point straight down. Araneomorphs comprise the vast majority of living spiders. Distinguishing characteristics Most spider species are Araneomorphae, which have fangs that face towards each other, increasing the orientations they can employ during prey capture. They have fewer book lungs (when present), and the females typically live one year. The Mygalomorphae have fangs that face towards the ground, and which are parallel to the long axis of the spider's body, thus they have only one orientation they can employ during prey capture. They have four pairs of book lungs, and the females often live many years. Image:Atrax robustus.jpg, This ''Atrax robustus'' shows the orientation of Myglamorphae fangs. Image:Che ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nephila Inaurata
''Trichonephila inaurata'', synonym ''Nephila inaurata'', commonly known as the red-legged golden orb-weaver spider or red-legged nephila, is a species of orb-weaver spider of the genus '' Trichonephila''. It is native to southern and East Africa, as well as several islands of the western Indian Ocean (Madagascar, the Seychelles, Réunion, Mauritius, Rodrigues). Web spinning and structure ''Trichonephila'' spiders produce large asymmetric orb webs up to in diameter. ''Trichonephila'' species remain in their webs permanently, so have a higher predation risk. The golden silk orb-weaver is named for the yellow color of the spider silk used to construct these webs. Yellow threads of their web shine like gold in sunlight. Carotenoids are the main contributors to this yellow color, but xanthurenic acid, two quinones, and an unknown compound may also aid in the color. Experimental evidence suggests that the silk's color may serve a dual purpose: sunlit webs ensnare bees that are a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orb-weaver Spider
Orb-weaver spiders are members of the spider family Araneidae. They are the most common group of builders of spiral wheel-shaped webs often found in gardens, fields, and forests. The English word "orb" can mean "circular", hence the English name of the group. Araneids have eight similar eyes, hairy or spiny legs, and no stridulating organs. The family has a cosmopolitan distribution, including many well-known large or brightly colored garden spiders. With 3,108 species in 186 genera worldwide, the Araneidae comprise the third-largest family of spiders (behind the Salticidae and Linyphiidae). Araneid webs are constructed in a stereotypical fashion, where a framework of nonsticky silk is built up before the spider adds a final spiral of silk covered in sticky droplets. Orb webs are also produced by members of other spider families. The long-jawed orb weavers (Tetragnathidae) were formerly included in the Araneidae; they are closely related, being part of the superfamily Arane ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amaurobiidae
''Amaurobiidae'' is a family of three-clawed cribellate or ecribellate spiders found in crevices and hollows or under stones where they build retreats, and are often collected in pitfall traps. Unlidded burrows are sometimes quite obvious in crusty, loamy soil. They are difficult to distinguish from related spiders in other families, especially Agelenidae, Desidae and Amphinectidae. Their intra- and interfamilial relationships are contentious. According to the World Spider Catalog, 2019, the family Amaurobiidae includes about 275 species in 49 genera. In Australia, they are small to medium-sized entelegyne spiders with minimal sheet webs. They are fairly common in Tasmania and nearby mainland Australia in cooler rainforest, some in caves. They are widespread but uncommon along the eastern coastline. They generally have eight similar eyes in two conservatively curved rows. They often have a calamistrum on metatarsus IV associated with a cribellum. Australian amaurobiids may be dis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hobo Spider
The hobo spider (''Eratigena agrestis'', formerly ''Tegenaria agrestis'') is a member of the family of spiders known colloquially as funnel web spiders, but not to be confused with the Australian funnel-web spider. Individuals construct a funnel-shaped structure of silk sheeting and lie in wait at the small end of the funnel for prey insects to blunder onto their webs. Hobo spiders sometimes build their webs in or around human habitations. The hobo spider lays its eggs in September and they hatch during late spring. After the male hobo spider mates it dies. Taxonomy The species was first described in 1802 by naturalist Charles Athanase Walckenaer as ''Aranea agrestis'', in reference to its western European habitat in fields, woods, and under rocks. In 1841, Walckenaer transferred the species to the genus ''Tegenaria''. In 2013, ''Tegenaria'' was split up, and the hobo spider was transferred to a new genus ''Eratigena'', an anagram of ''Tegenaria''. Identification Spiders, inc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agelenidae
The Agelenidae are a large family of spiders in the suborder Araneomorphae. Well-known examples include the common "grass spiders" of the genus ''Agelenopsis''. Nearly all Agelenidae are harmless to humans, but the bite of the hobo spider (''Eratigena agrestis'') may be medically significant, and some evidence suggests it might cause necrotic lesions, but the matter remains subject to debate. The most widely accepted common name for members of the family is funnel weaver. Description The body length of the smallest Agelenidae spiders are about , excluding the legs, while the larger species grow to long. Some exceptionally large species, such as ''Eratigena atrica'', may reach in total leg span. Agelenids have eight eyes in two horizontal rows of four. Their cephalothorax, cephalothoraces narrow somewhat towards the front where the eyes are. Their abdomens are more or less oval, usually patterned with two rows of lines and spots. Some species have longitudinal lines on the dorsa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World Spider Catalog
The World Spider Catalog (WSC) is an online searchable database concerned with spider taxonomy. It aims to list all accepted families, genera and species, as well as provide access to the related taxonomic literature. The WSC began as a series of individual web pages in 2000, created by Norman I. Platnick of the American Museum of Natural History. After Platnick's retirement in 2014, the Natural History Museum of Bern (Switzerland) took over the catalog, converting it to a relational database. , 50,151 accepted species were listed. The order Araneae Spiders (order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species dive ... (spiders) has the seventh-most species of all orders. The existence of the World Spider Catalog makes spiders the largest taxon with an online listing that is updated regularly. It ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monophyly
In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic groups are typically characterised by shared derived characteristics ( synapomorphies), which distinguish organisms in the clade from other organisms. An equivalent term is holophyly. The word "mono-phyly" means "one-tribe" in Greek. Monophyly is contrasted with paraphyly and polyphyly as shown in the second diagram. A ''paraphyletic group'' consists of all of the descendants of a common ancestor minus one or more monophyletic groups. A '' polyphyletic group'' is characterized by convergent features or habits of scientific interest (for example, night-active primates, fruit trees, aquatic insects). The features by which a polyphyletic group is differentiated from others are not inherited from a common ancestor. These definitions have taken ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Molecular Phylogenetics
Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to determine the processes by which diversity among species has been achieved. The result of a molecular phylogenetic analysis is expressed in a phylogenetic tree. Molecular phylogenetics is one aspect of molecular systematics, a broader term that also includes the use of molecular data in taxonomy and biogeography. Molecular phylogenetics and molecular evolution correlate. Molecular evolution is the process of selective changes (mutations) at a molecular level (genes, proteins, etc.) throughout various branches in the tree of life (evolution). Molecular phylogenetics makes inferences of the evolutionary relationships that arise due to molecular evolution and results in the construction of a phylogenetic tree. History The theoretical frame ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taxonomic Rank
In biological classification, taxonomic rank is the relative level of a group of organisms (a taxon) in an ancestral or hereditary hierarchy. A common system consists of species, genus, family (biology), family, order (biology), order, class (biology), class, phylum (biology), phylum, kingdom (biology), kingdom, domain (biology), domain. While older approaches to taxonomic classification were phenomenological, forming groups on the basis of similarities in appearance, organic structure and behaviour, methods based on genetic analysis have opened the road to cladistics. A given rank subsumes under it less general categories, that is, more specific descriptions of life forms. Above it, each rank is classified within more general categories of organisms and groups of organisms related to each other through inheritance of phenotypic trait, traits or features from common ancestors. The rank of any ''species'' and the description of its ''genus'' is ''basic''; which means that to iden ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Series (biology)
In biological classification, taxonomic rank is the relative level of a group of organisms (a taxon) in an ancestral or hereditary hierarchy. A common system consists of species, genus, family, order, class, phylum, kingdom, domain. While older approaches to taxonomic classification were phenomenological, forming groups on the basis of similarities in appearance, organic structure and behaviour, methods based on genetic analysis have opened the road to cladistics. A given rank subsumes under it less general categories, that is, more specific descriptions of life forms. Above it, each rank is classified within more general categories of organisms and groups of organisms related to each other through inheritance of traits or features from common ancestors. The rank of any ''species'' and the description of its ''genus'' is ''basic''; which means that to identify a particular organism, it is usually not necessary to specify ranks other than these first two. Consider a particul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Huntsman Spider
Huntsman spiders, members of the family Sparassidae (formerly Heteropodidae), are known by this name because of their speed and mode of hunting. They are also called giant crab spiders because of their size and appearance. Larger species sometimes are referred to as wood spiders, because of their preference for woody places (forests, mine shafts, woodpiles, wooden shacks). In southern Africa the genus '' Palystes'' are known as rain spiders or lizard-eating spiders. Commonly, they are confused with baboon spiders from the Mygalomorphae infraorder, which are not closely related. More than a thousand Sparassidae species occur in most warm temperate to tropical regions of the world, including much of Australasia, Africa, Asia, the Mediterranean Basin, and the Americas. Several species of huntsman spider can use an unusual form of locomotion. The wheel spider (''Carparachne aureoflava'') from the Namib uses a cartwheeling motion which gives it its name, while '' Cebrennus rechen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wolf Spider
Wolf spiders are members of the family Lycosidae (). They are robust and agile hunters with excellent eyesight. They live mostly in solitude, hunt alone, and do not spin webs. Some are opportunistic hunters, pouncing upon prey as they find it or chasing it over short distances; others wait for passing prey in or near the mouth of a burrow. Wolf spiders resemble nursery web spiders (family Pisauridae), but wolf spiders carry their egg sacs by attaching them to their spinnerets, while the Pisauridae carry their egg sacs with their chelicerae and pedipalps. Two of the wolf spider's eight eyes are large and prominent; this distinguishes them from nursery web spiders, whose eyes are all of roughly equal size. This can also help distinguish them from the similar-looking grass spiders. Description The many genera of wolf spiders range in body size (legs not included) from less than . They have eight eyes arranged in three rows. The bottom row consists of four small eyes, the middle ro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
