Crevice Weavers - Superfamily: Filistatoidea
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Crevice Weavers are a superfamily of Araneomorphs that contains 190 species in 18 genera in two subfamilies of a single family. The family name, Filistatidae is credited to Anton Ausserer, an Austrian arachnologist, after the Frenchman Eugene Simon had erroneously named the family three years prior in 1864 *. One of the subfamilies, Filistatinae, is restricted to southern Europe and large parts of North and South America. The other, Prithinae, occurs in the same areas but is also found in India, the Far East, southern Africa, Indonesia and parts of Australia. All up there are thirteen species from a single genus that may be found in Australia but there is only one known species that could possibly be encountered locally.
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Filistatids are usually medium-sized to large spiders with females of some species reaching up to 20 mm in bodylength (the males are typically half that size). There is however, one genus in which none of the ten species get much bigger than 3.5 mm. This genus is restricted to Mexico and the southern parts of the U.S.A.
Habits and lifestyle of the Crevice Weavers is rather similar to that of the Tunnel Spiders or Segestriidae. The Weavers are cribellate spiders that build tubular or funnelwebs as well and are similarly coloured. One thing that does set them apart however, is 'an unusual upward bend near (sic) the femur of the first pair of legs'. Apparantly it allows the spider to grab the prey while still in its' hole and also affords it more anchoring leverage and thus it can tackle prey larger than itself. |
* = Simon described named the family as 'Filistatiens' in 1864 with the French ending, '-iens'. In taxonomy there are strict rules regarding names and all must be Latinised with the compulsory standard ending for family names being '-ae'. Even though Simon's name predates the use of Ausserer's 'Filistatidae' by three years, it is the latter who is credited with using the proper name first. This particular issue of French naturalists of the 19th century having used '-iens' as the ending for family names has cropped up regularly in taxonomy.
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It has been noted by some researchers that it would appear that the females in this family do not leave their burrows during their lifetime, which may explain why from a number of species only males, who seem to be more nomadic, have been found. Description of various species is therefore based on male specimens only and considering the notion that sexual dimorphism is common among spiders it is possible that there may be both some gaps in, and, doubling up of taxonomic research and conclusions.
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Family: Filistatidae
Subfamily: Prithinae
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Eastern Crevice Weaver - Wandella orana
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Taxonomy:
Phylum: Arthropoda (Arthropods)
> Subphylum: Chelicerata (Chelicerates)
> Class: Arachnida (Arachnids)
> Order: Aranea (Spiders)
> Suborder: Araneomorphae (Typical Spiders)
> Infraorder: Haplogynae (Haplogyne Spiders)
> Superfamily: Filistatoidea (Crevice Weavers)
> Family: Filistatidae (Crevice Weavers)
> Subfamily: Prithinae
> Genus: Wandella
> Species: W. orana - Eastern Crevice Weaver ^
* = likely
^ = possibly
References and links:
> Ausserer, A., (1867). 'Die Arachniden Tirols nach ihrer horizontalen und verticalen Verbreitung, I.' Verhandlungen der Kaiserlich-Königlichen Zoologisch-Botanischen Gesellschaft in Wien, 17: 137–170
> Gray, M.R., (1994). 'A review of the filistatid spiders (Araneae: Filistatidae) of Australia.' Records of the Australian Museum, 46. 39-61 doi:10.3853/j.0067-1975.46.1994.17
> Zonstein, S., and Marusik, Y.M., (2019). 'A revision of the spider genus Filistata (Araneae: Filistatidae).' Arachnology 18(2): 53-93. doi:10.13156/arac.2018.18.2.53
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Ausserer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crevice_weaver
https://wsc.nmbe.ch/genlist/34/Filistatidae
> Ausserer, A., (1867). 'Die Arachniden Tirols nach ihrer horizontalen und verticalen Verbreitung, I.' Verhandlungen der Kaiserlich-Königlichen Zoologisch-Botanischen Gesellschaft in Wien, 17: 137–170
> Gray, M.R., (1994). 'A review of the filistatid spiders (Araneae: Filistatidae) of Australia.' Records of the Australian Museum, 46. 39-61 doi:10.3853/j.0067-1975.46.1994.17
> Zonstein, S., and Marusik, Y.M., (2019). 'A revision of the spider genus Filistata (Araneae: Filistatidae).' Arachnology 18(2): 53-93. doi:10.13156/arac.2018.18.2.53
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Ausserer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crevice_weaver
https://wsc.nmbe.ch/genlist/34/Filistatidae
Photographic contributions: