Erigoninae are the largest subfamily of
sheet weavers (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 Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
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 ...
. The exact
taxonomic 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 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
''Atypena'' is a genus of Asian dwarf spiders that was first described by Eugène Louis Simon in 1894.
Species
it contains eight species:
*'' Atypena adelinae'' Barrion & Litsinger, 1995 – Philippines
*'' Atypena cirrifrons'' (Heimer, 1984) ...
'' 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 environmen ...
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 ...
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 lig ...
both as spiderlings and adults.
Many males have bizarre projections on their carapace
A carapace is a 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 tortoises, the unde ...
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
* M ...
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 th ...
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 coun ...
and Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...
[
]
Footnotes
References
* (2000): Higher Level Phylogenetics of Erigonine Spiders (Araneae, Linyphiidae, Erigoninae). ''Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology'' 609. (160 pages
PDF
Further reading
*
{{Taxonbar, from=Q540898
Linyphiidae
Spider subfamilies