Erigoninae are the largest subfamily of

sheet weaver Linyphiidae, spiders commonly known as sheet weavers (from the shape of their webs), or money spiders (in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and in Portugal, from the superstition that if such a spider is seen running on you ...

s (Linyphiidae), which is itself the second largest spider family. In the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

they are known as dwarf spiders, while they are called money spiders in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The exact

taxonomic Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification. A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...

limits of the subfamily are not yet known.Hormiga 2000 Erigoninae are the most numerous of the sheet weavers, with more than 2,000 described species. Many species live in

leaf litter Plant litter (also leaf litter, tree litter, soil litter, litterfall or duff) is dead plant material (such as leaves, bark, needles, twigs, and cladodes) that have fallen to the ground. This detritus or dead organic material and its constituent ...

and build minute sheet webs. These spiders probably are more important as members of the beneficial complex of predators in

agroecosystems Agroecosystems are the ecosystems supporting the food production systems in our farms and gardens. As the name implies, at the core of an agroecosystem lies the human activity of agriculture. As such they are the basic unit of study in Agroecology, ...

than is generally known. indicates that Erigone atra (23.5%) Tenuiphantes tenuis (20.1%), Oedothorax apicatus (14.5%) are the most active species in agricultural fields. One species, '' Atypena formosana'' lives in colonies in wetland habitats, where it builds nets just above the water line in rice fields to hunt

planthopper A planthopper is any insect in the infraorder Fulgoromorpha, in the suborder Auchenorrhyncha, a group exceeding 12,500 described species worldwide. The name comes from their remarkable resemblance to leaves and other plants of their environment ...

nymph A nymph ( grc, νύμφη, nýmphē, el, script=Latn, nímfi, label=Modern Greek; , ) in ancient Greek folklore is a minor female nature deity. Different from Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature, are ty ...

s. The most well-known genus is '' Erigone''.

Description

Most are very small (some less than 1 mm, very few up to 6 mm)

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 ...

s that

balloon A balloon is a flexible bag that can be inflated with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, and air. For special tasks, balloons can be filled with smoke, liquid water, granular media (e.g. sand, flour or rice), or light so ...

both as spiderlings and adults. Many males have bizarre projections on their

carapace A carapace is a Dorsum (biology), dorsal (upper) section of the exoskeleton or shell in a number of animal groups, including arthropods, such as crustaceans and arachnids, as well as vertebrates, such as turtles and tortoises. In turtles and tor ...

s, including lobes,

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope * Mi ...

s, grooves, pits and modified hairs. The function of these projections is little understood, but is presumed to be involved with courtship. In a few species the females have been observed to grip the males by the pits or grooves during copulation, using their cheliceres. They later ingested secretions produced by the male prosomic glands after depositing saliva-like fluid on them.

Distribution

More than 300 species occur in northern Europe, comprising about one fourth of the spider fauna there About 650 are known from

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

While they are the dominant spider group of the temperate and cold regions of the Northern Hemisphere they are less diverse in the Southern Hemisphere. No native species have been found from

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

Footnotes

References

* (2000): Higher Level Phylogenetics of Erigonine Spiders (Araneae, Linyphiidae, Erigoninae). ''Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology'' 609. (160 pages
PDF

Description

Distribution

Footnotes

References

Further reading