Huttoniidae is a family of

ecribellate Cribellum literally means "little sieve", and in biology the term generally applies to anatomical structures in the form of tiny perforated plates. In certain groups of diatoms it refers to microscopically punctured regions of the frustule, or o ...

araneomorph 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 ...

spiders containing a single

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

, ''Huttonia'', itself containing a single described species, ''Huttonia palpimanoides''. It is known only 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 ...

. Very few specimens of the genus were known until it was discovered that they primarily inhabited dead

frond A frond is a large, divided leaf. In both common usage and botanical nomenclature, the leaves of ferns are referred to as fronds and some botanists restrict the term to this group. Other botanists allow the term frond to also apply to the lar ...

s of rainforest

fern A fern (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta ) is a member of a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. The polypodiophytes include all living pteridophytes exce ...

Taxonomy

It was first described by

Octavius Pickard-Cambridge Octavius Pickard-Cambridge FRS (3 November 1828 – 9 March 1917) was an English clergyman and zoologist. He was a keen arachnologist who described and named more than 900 species of spider. Life and work Pickard-Cambridge was born in Bl ...

in 1880. Originally placed with the ant spiders, it was moved to a family of its own, Huttoniidae, in 1984, in the superfamily

Palpimanoidea The Palpimanoidea or palpimanoids, also known as assassin spiders, are a group of araneomorph spiders, originally treated as a superfamily. As with many such groups, its circumscription has varied. , the following five families were included: * A ...

. Fossils of this family have been found in

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...

(

Campanian The Campanian is the fifth of six ages of the Late Cretaceous Epoch on the geologic timescale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). In chronostratigraphy, it is the fifth of six stages in the Upper Cretaceous Series. Campani ...

)

amber Amber is fossilized tree resin that has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Much valued from antiquity to the present as a gemstone, amber is made into a variety of decorative objects."Amber" (2004). In ...

from

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

and

Manitoba , image_map = Manitoba in Canada 2.svg , map_alt = Map showing Manitoba's location in the centre of Southern Canada , Label_map = yes , coordinates = , capital = Winn ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. This extended the known geological age of the Huttoniidae back about 80 million years, supporting the theory of ''H. palpimanoides'' being an ousted

relict A relict is a surviving remnant of a natural phenomenon. Biology A relict (or relic) is an organism that at an earlier time was abundant in a large area but now occurs at only one or a few small areas. Geology and geomorphology In geology, a r ...

species. They are probably most closely related to the now extinct family, Spatiatoridae. Although only one species is described, about twenty more

undescribed species In taxonomy, an undescribed taxon is a taxon (for example, a species) that has been discovered, but not yet formally described and named. The various Nomenclature Codes specify the requirements for a new taxon to be validly described and named. U ...

are thought to exist.

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from1=Q14631807, from2=Q12156293 Huttoniidae Monotypic Araneomorphae genera Spiders of New Zealand Taxa named by Octavius Pickard-Cambridge