Ground Sac Spiders - Family: Trachelidae
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A family of small to medium-sized - body-length 3-10 mm - spiders, often with short, strongly tapering legs, giving them a robust appearance. The cephalothorax is usually darker than the abdomen and the legs are often some shade of yellow-orange to reddish-brown. For spiders, they are not particularly hairy at all and the legs usually lack spines. More than half of the twenty genera in this family have been added since 2006.
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Most Trachelids are found in the Americas, Europe, East Asia and the southern half of Africa. Only one genus has been recorded numerous times from nearly all over Australia but, oddly enough, none of the records have been identified to species. Hence the questionmark in the 'Taxonomy' list below. With only a handful of photos available from international sources, old literature will need to be consulted for identification of what appear to two Australian species.
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The Trachelidae were first described by Eugene Simon in 1897 as a subfamily of the Clubionidae. Transferred later to the Corinnidae it was not until 2001 that the Trachelidae came to be regarded as a family in its' own right. It has been an 'unplaced family' in the Infraorder: Entelgynae since 2017.
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Orthobula sp.
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Taxonomy:
Phylum: Arthropoda (Arthropods)
> Subphylum: Chelicerata (Chelicerates)
> Class: Arachnida (Arachnids)
> Order: Aranea (Spiders)
> Suborder: Araneomorphae (Typical Spiders)
> Infraorder: Entelegynea (Entelegyne Spiders)
> Family: Trachelidae (Ground Sac Spiders)
> Genus: Orthobula
> Species: ?
References and links:
> Deeleman-Reinhold, C.L., (2001). 'Forest Spiders of South East Asia: With a Revision of the Sac and Ground Spiders (Araneae: Clubionidae, Corinnidae, Liocranidae, Gnaphosidae, Prodidomidae, and Trochanterriidae).' BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-11959-8.
> Ramírez, M.J., (2014). 'The morphology and phylogeny of dionychan spiders (Araneae: Araneomorphae).' Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. 390: 343. doi:10.1206/821.1. hdl:11336/18066. S2CID 86146467
> Simon, E., (1897). 'Histoire naturelle des araignees.' Deuxieme edition, tome second. Roret, Paris, pp. 1-192.
> Wheeler, W.C. et al, (2017). 'The spider tree of life: phylogeny of Araneae based on target-gene analyses from an extensive taxon sampling.' Cladistics. 33 (6): 609. doi:10.1111/cla.12182. S2CID 35535038
https://bugguide.net/node/view/1017586
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trachelidae
> Deeleman-Reinhold, C.L., (2001). 'Forest Spiders of South East Asia: With a Revision of the Sac and Ground Spiders (Araneae: Clubionidae, Corinnidae, Liocranidae, Gnaphosidae, Prodidomidae, and Trochanterriidae).' BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-11959-8.
> Ramírez, M.J., (2014). 'The morphology and phylogeny of dionychan spiders (Araneae: Araneomorphae).' Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. 390: 343. doi:10.1206/821.1. hdl:11336/18066. S2CID 86146467
> Simon, E., (1897). 'Histoire naturelle des araignees.' Deuxieme edition, tome second. Roret, Paris, pp. 1-192.
> Wheeler, W.C. et al, (2017). 'The spider tree of life: phylogeny of Araneae based on target-gene analyses from an extensive taxon sampling.' Cladistics. 33 (6): 609. doi:10.1111/cla.12182. S2CID 35535038
https://bugguide.net/node/view/1017586
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trachelidae
Photographic contributions: