''Cryptachaea veruculata'' is a spider native to Australia and

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 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...

. It has been introduced into

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 ...

and

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...

.Platnick 2009Yeates & Williams 2006 The species has potential to control

spider mite Spider mites are members of the Tetranychidae family, which includes about 1,200 species. They are part of the subclass Acari (mites). Spider mites generally live on the undersides of leaves of plants, where they may spin protective silk webs, ...

s and leafroller caterpillars in New Zealand.

Description

Females reach a body size of about 4 mm, males only about 1.5 mm. They sometimes build small webs in flowers and green vegetation, but will also build webs in corners of the outer walls of buildings.

Taxonomy

This species was moved from genus ''

Achaearanea ''Achaearanea'' is a genus of comb-footed spiders that was first described by Embrik Strand in 1929. It used to include the extremely abundant common house spider, which was transferred to genus ''Parasteatoda'' in 2006, together with many other ...

'' in 2008.

Name

Common names include Diamond Comb-footed Spider. In New Zealand, it is also known as just "cobweb spider".

Notes

References

Yeates, G.W. Gregor William Yeates, publishing as GW Yeates (19 May 1944 – 6 August 2012),Death Notice, page 23, Manawatu Standard, 8 August 2012 was a New Zealand soil zoologist and ecologist. He was ''"considered the world's leading authority in so ...

& Williams, P.A. (2006): Export of Plant and Animal Species from an Insular Biota. in: Biological Invasions in New Zealand. — * Platnick, Norman I. (2009)
The world spider catalog
version 9.5. ''American Museum of Natural History''.

External links