''Cladomelea'' is a

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 n ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

n orb-weaver spiders first described by

Eugène Simon Eugène Louis Simon (; 30 April 1848 – 17 November 1924) was a French naturalist who worked particularly on insects and spiders, but also on birds and plants. He is by far the most prolific spider taxonomist in history, describing over 4 ...

in 1895. Adult females of the genus are

bolas spider A bolas spider is a member of the orb-weaver spider (family Araneidae) that, instead of spinning a typical orb web, hunts by using one or more sticky "capture blobs" on the end of a silk line, known as a "bolas". By swinging the bolas at flying ...

s, capturing their prey with one or more sticky drops at the end of a single line of silk rather than in a web. Males and juvenile females capture their prey directly with their legs.

Species

it contains four species: *'' Cladomelea akermani'' Hewitt, 1923 – South Africa *'' Cladomelea debeeri'' Roff & Dippenaar-Schoeman, 2004 – South Africa *'' Cladomelea longipes'' (O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1877) – Congo *'' Cladomelea ornata'' Hirst, 1907 – Central Africa

References

Araneidae Araneomorphae genera Spiders of Africa Taxa named by Eugène Simon {{Araneidae-stub