The family Dipluridae, known as curtain-web spiders are a group of spiders in the infraorder Mygalomorphae, that have two pairs of booklungs, and chelicerae (fangs) that move up and down in a stabbing motion. A number of genera, including that of the Sydney funnel-web spider (Atrax), used to be classified in this family but have now been moved to Hexathelidae.
The Mesothelae are a suborder of spiders that includes a single extant family, Liphistiidae, and a number of extinct families. This suborder is thought to form the sister group to all other living spiders, and to retain ancestral characters, such as a segmented abdomen with spinnerets in the middle and two pairs of book lungs. Members of Liphistiidae are medium to large spiders with eight eyes grouped on a tubercle. They are found only in China, Japan, and southeast Asia. The oldest known Mesothelae spiders are known from the Carboniferous, over 300 million years ago.
The spider family Liphistiidae, recognized by Tamerlan Thorell in 1869, comprises 8 genera and about 100 species of medium-sized spiders from Southeast Asia, China, and Japan. They are among the most basal living spiders, belonging to the suborder Mesothelae. In Japan, the Kimura spider is well known.
Oonopidae, also known as goblin spiders, is a family of spiders consisting of over 1,600 described species in about 113 genera worldwide, with total species diversity estimated at 2000 to 2500 species. The type genus of the family is OonopsKeyserling, 1835.
Long-jawed orb weavers or long jawed spiders (Tetragnathidae) are a family of araneomorph spiders first described by Anton Menge in 1866. They have elongated bodies, legs, and chelicerae, and build small orb webs with an open hub with few, wide-set radii and spirals with no signal line or retreat. Some species are often found in long vegetation near water.
Araneida is a suborder for the order Araneae, suggested by Wunderlich in 2015. It includes all modern spiders, and excludes Uraraneida.
Archaeidae, also known as assassin spiders and pelican spiders, is a spider family with about ninety described species in five genera. It contains small spiders, ranging from 2 to 8 millimetres long, that prey exclusively on other spiders. They are unusual in that they have "necks", ranging from long and slender to short and fat. The name "pelican spider" refers to these elongated jaws and necks used to catch their prey. Living species of Archaeidae occur in South Africa, Madagascar and Australia, with the sister family Mecysmaucheniidae occurring in southern South America and New Zealand.
Garcorops jadis is a possibly extinct species of Wall crab spider, family Selenopidae, and at present, it is one of four known species in the genus Garcorops. The species is solely known from copal found on the beach near Sambava, on the northeast coast of Madagascar.
Mongolarachne is an extinct genus of spiders placed in the monogeneric family Mongolarachnidae. The genus contains only one species, Mongolarachne jurassica, described in 2013, which is presently the largest fossilized spider on record. The type species was originally described as Nephila jurassica and placed in the living genus Nephila which contains the golden silk orb-weavers.
This list of fossil arthropods described in 2015 is a list of new taxa of trilobites, fossil insects, crustaceans, arachnids and other fossil arthropods of every kind that have been described during the year 2015. The list only includes taxa at the level of genus or species.
Uraraneida is an extinct order of arachnids, known from fossils of Middle Devonian, Permian and possibly Cretaceous age. Two genera of fossils have been definitively placed in this order: Attercopus from the Devonian of United States and Permarachne from the Permian of Russia. In 2018, a third genus Chimerarachne, from the Cretaceous of Myanmar was proposed to belong to this group, but this placement is disputed. When the first fossils were found, they were identified as spiders, but now constitute the Uraraneida, a separate but closely related group.
New Jersey Amber, sometimes called Raritan amber, is amber found in the Raritan and Magothy Formations of the Central Atlantic (Eastern) coast of the United States. It is dated to the Late Cretaceous, Turonian age, based on pollen analysis of the host formations. It has been known since the 19th century, with several of the old clay-pit sites now producing many specimens for study. It has yielded a number of organism fossils, including fungi, plants, tardigrades, insects and feathers. The first identified Cretaceous age ant was described from a fossil found in New Jersey in 1966.
Archaea is an extinct genus of spiders in the family Archaeidae. As of October 2016, four species are placed in the genus. All have been found preserved in amber, either from the Baltic or Bitterfeld, Germany. First described in 1854, Archaea species have a distinctive "neck" separating the head from the thorax, and very long chelicerae ("jaws").
This list of fossil arthropods described in 2017 is a list of new taxa of trilobites, fossil insects, crustaceans, arachnids and other fossil arthropods of every kind that are scheduled to be described during the year 2017, as well as other significant discoveries and events related to arthropod paleontology that are scheduled to occur in the year 2017.
Chimerarachne is a genus of extinct arachnids, sometimes considered as spider itself, containing a single species Chimerarachne yingi. Fossils of Chimerarachne were discovered in Burmese amber from Myanmar which dates to the mid-Cretaceous, about 100 million years ago. Its classification is disputed, either belonging to Uraraneida a group otherwise known from the Devonian to Permian, or a separate clade closer to spiders. Since the earliest spider fossils are from the Carboniferous, either answer results in an at least a 170 myr ghost lineage with no fossil record, making it a Lazarus taxon. The size of the animal is quite small, being only 2.5 millimetres (0.098 in) in body length, with the tail being about 3 millimetres (0.12 in) in length. These fossils resemble spiders in having two of their key defining features: spinnerets for spinning silk, and a modified male organ on the pedipalp for transferring sperm. At the same time they retain a whip-like tail, rather like that of a whip scorpion and uraraneids. Chimerarachne is not ancestral to spiders, being much younger than the oldest spiders which are known from the Carboniferous, but it appears to be a late survivor of an extinct group which was probably very close to the origins of spiders. It suggests that there used to be spider-like animals with tails which lived alongside true spiders for at least 200 million years.
Noideattella tsiba is a species of araneomorph spider in the family Oonopidae,. This species can only be found on the African island Madagascar. Two individual specimens were collected when the species was first discovered. The first was a male holotype which measured 1.4 mm across. The other, a female paratype measured 1.6 mm.
Priscaleclercera is a genus of araneomorph spiders in the family Psilodercidae, containing seven species. The genus was first described by Jorge Wunderlich in 2017, and its fossils have been found in Burmese amber, while live specimens have been found in Indonesia (Sulawesi).
Burmese amber is fossil resin dating to the early Late Cretaceous Cenomanian age recovered from deposits in the Hukawng Valley of northern Myanmar. It is known for being one of the most diverse Cretaceous age amber paleobiotas, containing rich arthropod fossils, along with uncommon vertebrate fossils and even rare marine inclusions. A mostly complete list of all taxa described up until 2018 can be found in Ross 2018; its supplement Ross 2019b covers most of 2019.
Fossilcalcaridae is an extinct Mygalomorphae spider family in the clade Avicularioidea containing the single species Fossilcalcar praeteritus. The family genus and species were described in 2015 from a male fossil entombed in Cretaceous age Burmese amber.
Lagonomegopidae is an extinct family of spiders known from the Cretaceous period. Members of the family are distinguished by a large pair of eyes, positioned on the anterolateral flanks of the carapace, with the rest of the eyes being small. They have generally been considered members of Palpimanoidea, but this has recently been questioned. Members of the family are known from the late Early Cretaceous (Albian) to near the end of the Late Cretaceous (Campanian) of Eurasia, North America and the Middle East, which was then attached to Africa as part of Gondwana. They are generally assumed to have been free living hunters as opposed to web builders.
