The family Cyrtaucheniidae, known as wafer-lid trapdoor spiders, are a widespread family of

Mygalomorphae The Mygalomorphae, or mygalomorphs, are an infraorder of spiders, and comprise one of three major groups of living spiders with over 3,000 species, found on all continents except Antarctica. Many members are known as trapdoor spiders due to t ...

spider Spiders (order (biology), order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight limbs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude spider silk, silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and ran ...

Description

Wafer-lid spiders are generally large and range in color between light brown and black. Their eyes are placed in two rows, either in a rectangular position or with the back row wider apart. They lack the thornlike spines on tarsi and metatarsi I and II (the two outermost leg segments) found in true trapdoor spiders ( Ctenizidae). Many, but not all, make wafer-like doors to their burrows, while others build the cork-like doors found commonly in the true trapdoor spiders.

Distribution

The family is well represented

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

, and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

. A currently undescribed genus in the western United States may hold an altitude record for the family, being found up to over . The genus ''Anemesia'' is found only in

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

, and ''Cyrtauchenius'' reaches from Algeria north to Italy, with one species found in the USA. ''Angka'' is endemic to the

cloud forest A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest, is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, Montane forest, montane, Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist forest characteri ...

Doi Inthanon Doi Inthanon (, ) is the highest mountain in Thailand. It is in Chom Thong District, Chiang Mai Province. This mountain is an ultra prominent peak, known in the past as Doi Luang Ang Ga (''Grand Mount Ang Ga'') or meaning the 'crow's pond top'. ...

, Thailand.

Genera

The former subfamily Euctenizinae from the US and Mexico were promoted to family rank as

Euctenizidae The Euctenizidae (formerly Cyrtaucheniidae subfamily Euctenizinae) are a family of mygalomorph spiders. They are now considered to be more closely related to Idiopidae. Etymology The name comes from the Greek prefix (''eu-''), meaning "valu ...

in 2012, and are now considered more closely related to

Idiopidae Idiopidae, also known as armored or spiny trapdoor spiders, is a family of mygalomorph spiders first described by Eugène Simon Eugène Louis Simon (; 30 April 1848 – 17 November 1924) was a French naturalist who worked particularly o ...

. Further changes to the

circumscription Circumscription may refer to: * Circumscribed circle * Circumscription (logic) *Circumscription (taxonomy) * Circumscription theory, a theory about the origins of the political state in the history of human evolution proposed by the American anthr ...

of the family were made in 2020. , the

World Spider Catalog The World Spider Catalog (WSC) is an online searchable database concerned with spider taxonomy. It aims to list all accepted families, genera and species, as well as provide access to the related taxonomic literature. The WSC began as a series of ...

accepted the following genera: *''

Acontius In Greek mythology, Acontius (Ancient Greek: Ἀκόντιος) was a beautiful youth of the island of Ceos, the hero of a love story told by Callimachus in a poem of which only fragments remain, and which forms the subject of two of Ovid's ''He ...

'' Karsch, 1879 — Africa, Argentina *'' Ancylotrypa'' Simon, 1889 — Africa *'' Anemesia'' Pocock, 1895 — Asia *'' Bolostromoides'' Schiapelli & Gerschman, 1945 — Venezuela *'' Bolostromus'' Ausserer, 1875 — South America, Caribbean, Panama, Uganda *'' Cyrtauchenius'' Thorell, 1869 — Algeria, United States Genera which have been reclassified to other families include: *''

Amblyocarenum ''Amblyocarenum'' is a genus of spider in the family Nemesiidae, found in southern Europe and the Mediterranean. It was formerly placed in the family Cyrtaucheniidae. Species , the World Spider Catalog accepted the following species: *'' Amb ...

'' Simon, 1892 →

Nemesiidae Nemesiidae is a family of mygalomorph spiders first described by Eugène Simon in 1889, and raised to family status in 1985. Before becoming its own family, it was considered part of "Dipluridae". The family is sometimes referred to as wishbone s ...

*'' Angka'' Raven & Schwendinger, 1995 →

Microstigmatidae Microstigmatidae is a small family of spiders with about 38 described species in eleven genera. They are small ground-dwelling and free-living spiders that make little use of silk. The family was removed from the family Dipluridae in 1981. The s ...

*'' Homostola'' Simon, 1892 → Bemmeridae *'' Fufius ''Simon, 1888 → Rhytidicolidae

Footnotes

References

* Raven, Robert J. (1985). "The spider Infraorder Mygalomorphae (Araneae): cladistics and systematics". ''Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History'' 182: 1–180. * Platnick, Norman I. (2008).
The world spider catalog
version 8.5". American Museum of Natural History. {{Taxonbar, from=Q10031 Cyrtaucheniidae Mygalomorphae families

Description

Distribution

Genera

See also

Footnotes

References