The Agelenoidea or agelenoids are a superfamily or informal group of entelegyne araneomorph spiders. Phylogenetic studies since 2000 have not consistently recovered such a group, with more recent studies rejecting it.
The Agelenoidea or agelenoids are a superfamily or informal group of entelegyne araneomorph spiders. Phylogenetic studies since 2000 have not consistently recovered such a group, with more recent studies rejecting it.
In 1999, a phylogenetic study found a clade called "agelenoids" consisting of members of the families Agelenidae, Amphinectidae (now included in Desidae) and Desidae. [1] A 2005 study did not confirm this grouping, instead placing these three families plus Dictynidae in a clade called the "fused cribellar clade". [2] The Desidae have also been placed in the Dictynoidea. [3] In 2014, a cladogram produced in a study of dionychan spiders placed members of the families Amaurobiidae and Cycloctenidae in a clade with members of Agelenidae, Amphinectidae (now Desidae) and Desidae, as sister to the rest of the large RTA Clade. (Amaurobiidae, represented by the genera Pimus and Macrobunus , was not monophyletic in this study.) Shading marks families once considered agelenoids. [4]
| RTA clade |
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A 2017 study also did not support the Agelenoidea, but placed the two families previously included in this group in a more widely defined "marronoid clade", comprising Amaurobiidae, Agelenidae, Cybaeidae, Cycloctenidae, Desidae, Dictynidae, Hahniidae, Stiphidiidae and Toxopidae, with Agelenidae and Desidae quite far apart. [5]