Caerostris
| Caerostris | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Caerostris sexcuspidata | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Subphylum: | Chelicerata |
| Class: | Arachnida |
| Order: | Araneae |
| Infraorder: | Araneomorphae |
| Family: | Araneidae |
| Genus: | Caerostris Thorell, 1868[1] |
| Synonyms[1] | |
|
Trichocharis Simon, 1895 | |
Caerostris is a genus of spiders in the Araneidae family. They are sometimes called bark spiders.[2] The genus Caerostris was created by the noted Swedish arachnologist Tamerlan Thorell (1830-1901) in 1868. Most species are found in south eastern Africa and neighbouring Madagascar.
Taxonomy
The genus Caerostris was erected in 1868 by Tamerlan Thorell with the type species being Epeira mitralis Vinson, 1863, which Thorell transferred to Caerostris mitralis.[1][3] Up to 2009, only 11 species had been described. A further species, C. darwini, was described in 2010,[4] and six more species in 2015.[2][1] Two of the "species", C. sexcuspidata and C. sumatrana, will probably need to be divided further to produce genetically uniform species.[2]
A molecular phylogenetic study of 12 of the species of Caerostris produced the phylogenetic tree shown below, showing that the African and Madagascan species form a monophyletic group.[2]
|
African and Madagascan species |
Species
As of March 2016, the World Spider Catalog accepted the following species:[1]
- Caerostris almae Gregorič, 2015 – Madagascar
- Caerostris bojani Gregorič, 2015 – Madagascar
- Caerostris corticosa Pocock, 1902 – South Africa
- Caerostris cowani Butler, 1882 – Madagascar
- Caerostris darwini Kuntner & Agnarsson, 2010 – Madagascar
- Caerostris ecclesiigera Butler, 1882 – Madagascar
- Caerostris extrusa Butler, 1882 – Madagascar
- Caerostris hirsuta (Simon, 1895) – Madagascar
- Caerostris indica Strand, 1915 – Myanmar
- Caerostris linnaeus Gregorič, 2015 – Mozambique
- Caerostris mayottensis Grasshoff, 1984 – Comoro Is.
- Caerostris mitralis (Vinson, 1863) (type species) – Central Africa, Madagascar
- Caerostris pero Gregorič, 2015 – Madagascar
- Caerostris sexcuspidata (Fabricius, 1793) – Africa, Madagascar, Comoro Islands, Aldabra
- Caerostris sumatrana Strand, 1915 – India to China, Borneo
- Caerostris tinamaze Gregorič, 2015 – South Africa
- Caerostris vicina (Blackwall, 1866) – Central, Southern Africa
- Caerostris wallacei Gregorič et al., 2015 – Madagascar
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 "Gen. Caerostris Thorell, 1868", World Spider Catalog, Natural History Museum Bern, retrieved 2016-03-13
- 1 2 3 4 Gregorič, Matjaž; Blackledge, Todd A.; Agnarsson, Ingi & Kuntner, Matjaž (2015), "A molecular phylogeny of bark spiders reveals new species from Africa and Madagascar (Araneae: Araneidae: Caerostris)", Journal of Arachnology, 43 (3): 293–312, doi:10.1636/0161-8202-43.3.293
- ↑ Thorell, T. (1868), "Araneae. Species novae minusve cognitae", in Virgin, C.A., Kongliga Svenska Fregatten Eugenies Resa omkring Jorden (in Latin), Uppsala, pp. 1–34
- ↑ Kuntner, Matjaž & Agnarsson, Ingi (2010), "Web gigantism in Darwin's bark spider, a new species from Madagascar (Araneidae: Caerostris)", The Journal of Arachnology, 38: 346–356, doi:10.1636/B09-113.1