The Gnaphosoidea or gnaphosoids are a

superfamily SUPERFAMILY is a database and search platform of structural and functional annotation for all proteins and genomes. It classifies amino acid sequences into known structural domains, especially into SCOP superfamilies. Domains are functional, str ...

araneomorph The Araneomorphae (also called the Labidognatha or "true spiders") are an infraorder of spiders. They are distinguishable by chelicerae (fangs) that point diagonally forward and cross in a pinching action, in contrast to the Mygalomorphae (taran ...

spiders with seven families. A 2014 study did not find the group to be

monophyletic In biological cladistics for the classification of organisms, monophyly is the condition of a taxonomic grouping being a clade – that is, a grouping of organisms which meets these criteria: # the grouping contains its own most recent co ...

Phylogeny

Gnaphosoidea has been

circumscribed In geometry, a circumscribed circle for a set of points is a circle passing through each of them. Such a circle is said to ''circumscribe'' the points or a polygon formed from them; such a polygon is said to be ''inscribed'' in the circle. * Circum ...

to contain the following families: *

Ammoxenidae Ground spiders comprise Gnaphosidae, the seventh largest spider family with over 2,000 described species in over 100 genus, genera distributed worldwide. There are 105 species known to central Europe, and common genera include ''Gnaphosa'', ''Dra ...

Cithaeronidae Cithaeronidae is a small family of araneomorph spiders first described by Simon in 1893 Female ''Cithaeron'' are about long, males about . They are pale yellowish, fast-moving spiders that actively hunt at night and rest during the day, buildin ...

Gallieniellidae Gallieniellidae is a family of spiders first described by J. Millot in 1947. It was originally thought to be endemic to Madagascar until species were also found in southern Kenya, northeastern Argentina, and Australia. '' Drassodella'' was transf ...

Gnaphosidae Ground spiders comprise Gnaphosidae, the seventh largest spider family with over 2,000 described species in over 100 genera distributed worldwide. There are 105 species known to central Europe, and common genera include '' Gnaphosa'', '' Drassode ...

Lamponidae Lamponidae is a family of spiders first described by Eugène Simon in 1893. It contains about 200 described species in 23 genera, most of which are endemic to Australia, with the genus ''Centrocalia'' endemic to New Caledonia, and two ''Lampona'' ...

Trochanteriidae Trochanteriidae is a family of spiders first described by Ferdinand Karsch in 1879 containing about 52 species in 6 genera. Most are Endemism, endemic to Australia though ''Doliomalus'' and ''Trochanteria'' are from South America and ''Plator (spi ...

Gnaphosoidea has been placed in the Dionycha clade, itself part of the

RTA clade The RTA clade is a clade of araneomorph spiders, united by the possession of a retrolateral tibial apophysis – a backward-facing projection on the tibia of the male pedipalp. The clade contains over 21,000 species, almost half the current total ...

: The Prodidomidae, Lamponidae and Gnaphosidae have been considered "higher gnaphosoids", sharing anterior lateral spinnerets consisting of only a single "joint" (article); the "lower gnaphosoids" (Ammoxenidae, Cithaeronidae, Gallieniellidae and Trochanteriidae) retain a

distal Standard anatomical terms of location are used to describe unambiguously the anatomy of humans and other animals. The terms, typically derived from Latin or Greek roots, describe something in its standard anatomical position. This position provi ...

article that is represented by an entire ring of hardened (sclerotized) cuticle. (Earlier the Lamponidae were grouped with the "lower gnaphosoids", having spinnerets of an intermediate kind.) One hypothesis for the internal

phylogeny A phylogenetic tree or phylogeny is a graphical representation which shows the evolutionary history between a set of species or Taxon, taxa during a specific time.Felsenstein J. (2004). ''Inferring Phylogenies'' Sinauer Associates: Sunderland, M ...

of the gnaphosoids, defined in this way, is: A 2014 study of dionychan spiders did not recover Gnaphosoidea as a

group, instead finding "gnaphosoid" families other than Gnaphosidae and Prodidomidae to be part of a larger clade, mixed in with three other dionychan families,

Liocranidae Liocranidae is a family of araneomorph spiders first described by Eugène Simon in 1897. They are one of several groups called "sac spiders". The holarctic genus '' Agroeca'' is the best-known, but it also includes various genera of more obscur ...

Trachelidae Trachelidae is a family of Araneomorphae, araneomorph spiders (more recently evolved spiders with inward-pointing chelicerae) first described by Eugène Simon in 1897 as a subfamily called "Tracheleae" ("Trachelinae" in modern terminology). The ...

and

Phrurolithidae Phrurolithidae is a family of araneomorph spiders, known as guardstone spiders. The family was first described by Nathan Banks in 1892. First included in the Corinnidae as the subfamily Phrurolithinae, later phylogenetic studies justified a separ ...

. Forcing Gnaphosoidea to be monophyletic produced results described as "quite suboptimal".

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q54895 Araneomorphae Arachnid superfamilies