Antrodiaetidae, also known as folding trapdoor spiders or folding-door spiders, is a small

spider 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 ...

family related to atypical tarantulas. They are found almost exclusively in the western and midwestern United States, from

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

and east to the

Appalachian mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...

. Exceptions include ''

Antrodiaetus roretzi ''Antrodiaetus'' is a genus of American and Japanese folding trapdoor spiders first described by Anton Ausserer in 1871. The name is a combination of the Greek "antrodiaitos" (αντροδιαιτος), meaning "living in caves", "antron" (αν ...

'' and ''

Antrodiaetus yesoensis ''Antrodiaetus'' is a genus of American and Japanese folding trapdoor spiders first described by Anton Ausserer in 1871. The name is a combination of the Greek "antrodiaitos" (αντροδιαιτος), meaning "living in caves", "antron" (αν ...

'', which are endemic to

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

and are considered relict species. It is likely that two separate

vicariance Allopatric speciation () – also referred to as geographic speciation, vicariant speciation, or its earlier name the dumbbell model – is a mode of speciation that occurs when biological populations become geographically isolated from ...

events led to the evolution of these two species.

Genera

, the

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 ...

accepted the following genera: *''

Aliatypus ''Aliatypus'' is a genus of North American folding trapdoor spiders first described by C. P. Smith in 1908. They resemble members of Ctenizidae in morphology and behavior, but this is due to convergent evolution rather than direct relation. Th ...

'' Smith, 1908 — United States *''

Antrodiaetus ''Antrodiaetus'' is a genus of American and Japanese folding trapdoor spiders first described by Anton Ausserer in 1871. The name is a combination of the Greek "antrodiaitos" (αντροδιαιτος), meaning "living in caves", "antron" (αν ...

'' Ausserer, 1871 — United States, Japan *''

Atypoides ''Atypoides'' is a genus of North American folding trapdoor spiders. It was first described by Octavius Pickard-Cambridge in 1883, and it has only been found in United States. It was synonymized with the genus '' Antrodiaetus'' in 2007, but wa ...

'' O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1883 — United States *''

Hexura ''Hexura'' is a genus of American folding trapdoor spiders that was first described by Eugène Louis Simon in 1884. it contains two species, found in the United States: '' H. picea'' and '' H. rothi''. Originally placed with Mecicobothriidae, ...

'' Simon, 1884 — United States

Name

The name “folding-door” describes how they open or close the entrance to their burrow; they unfold or fold the door.

References

* Hendrixson, B.E. & Bond, J.E. (2005). Two sympatric species of ''Antrodiaetus'' from southwestern North Carolina (Araneae, Mygalomorphae, Antrodiaetidae). ''Zootaxa'' 872:1-19
PDF
(''A. unicolor'', ''A. microunicolor'')

External links

Mygalomorphae families Taxa named by Willis J. Gertsch {{Mygalomorphae-stub

Genera

Name

See also

References

External links