Orb-weaver spiders are members of the spider family Araneidae. They are the most common group of builders of spiral wheel-shaped webs often found in gardens, fields, and forests. The English word orb can mean "circular", hence the English name of the group. Araneids have eight similar eyes, hairy or spiny legs, and no stridulating organs.
Oenosandridae is a family of Australian noctuoid moths. Genera include:
Gasteracantha is a genus of orb-weaver spiders first named by Carl Jakob Sundevall in 1833. The females of most species are brightly colored with six prominent spines on their broad, hardened, shell-like abdomens. The name Gasteracantha is derived from the Greek gaster (γαστήρ), meaning "belly, abdomen", and akantha (άκανθα), meaning "thorn, spine". Spiny-backed orb-weavers are sometimes colloquially called "crab spiders" because of their shape, but they are not closely related to the true crab spiders. Other colloquial names for certain species include thorn spider, star spider, kite spider, or jewel spider.
A bolas spider is a member of the orb-weaver spider that, instead of spinning a typical orb web, hunts by using one or more sticky "capture blobs" on the end of a silk line, known as a "bolas". By swinging the bolas at flying male moths or moth flies nearby, the spider may snag its prey rather like a fisherman snagging a fish on a hook. Because of this, they are also called angling or fishing spiders. The prey is lured to the spider by the production of up to three sex pheromone-analogues.
Micrathena gracilis is a spider in the family Araneidae (orb-weavers), commonly known as the spined micrathena or castleback orbweaver. This spider spins a moderately large and very tightly coiled web. The spiders themselves are small and can be found to be anywhere from 4.2 mm to 10.8 mm long. Its venom is not medically significant to humans, making it completely harmless. M. gracilis is unique in appearance due to its large spiky abdomen and black and white bodies. Certain spiders of this species can also display a yellow color on the sides of their bodies. These spiders can be seen most active during the end of the summer and beginning of fall. M. gracilis is diurnal and are rarely ever seen active at night.
Argiope aetherea is a common, large orb-web spider. Like other species of Argiope, it is commonly known as the St Andrew's Cross spider, due to the characteristic cross-shaped web decorations female spiders often include in their webs. A. aetherea is similar in appearance to A. keyserlingi, however female A. aetherea are generally larger than A. keyserlingi. Like most orb-web spiders, A. aetherea shows considerable sexual size dimorphism, with females being many times larger than males.
Micrathena, known as spiny orbweavers, is a genus of orb-weaver spiders first described by Carl Jakob Sundevall in 1833. Micrathena contains more than a hundred species, most of them Neotropical woodland-dwelling species. The name is derived from the Greek "micro", meaning "small", and the goddess Athena.
The stiff-spine spiny-rat, Proechimys echinothrix, or Tefe spiny rat, is a spiny rat species from South America. It is found in Brazil and Colombia.
Micrathena sagittata, also known as the arrow-shaped micrathena, is a species of spider belonging to the family Araneidae. It is found in the eastern United States and throughout Central America.
Dolichognatha is a genus of tropical and subtropical long-jawed orb-weavers that was first described by Octavius Pickard-Cambridge in 1869. Originally placed with the Archaeidae, it was transferred to the Araneidae in 1967, and to the Tetragnathidae in 1981.
Macracantha is a genus of Asian orb-weaver spiders recognized as containing a single species, Macracantha arcuata. Macracantha is notable for the extremely long, curved spines on the abdomens of female members of the genus; Eugène Simon created the taxon name from the Greek words μακρός and ἄκανθα (spine). It occurs from India and China through Southeast Asia to Borneo.
Neoscona theisi is a species of spider in the family Araneidae. Spiders in the genus Neoscona have a mostly pantropical distribution.
Micrathena mitrata, the white micrathena, is a species of orb weaver in the spider family Araneidae. It is found in a range from the United States to Brazil.
Paraverrucosa is a genus of orb-weaver spiders first described by Cândido Firmino de Mello-Leitão in 1939 to contain the type species, Paraverrucosa neglecta. Each of the four species have been moved around between Wagneriana, Edricus, and Verrucosa, but were all moved to this genus in 2020.
Gasteracantha flava is a species of spider described in 1849 from Chile. The spider's abdomen bears 14 spines and is yellow in color with brown or black sigilla and a strongly wrinkled ventral side. The World Spider Catalog currently treats this taxon as a spiny orb-weaver spider in the genus Gasteracantha. In 1849, H. Nicolet included it in the genus Gasteracantha along with 18 other species he described from Chile. Nicolet described G. flava as being closely allied to another species described at the same time, Gasteracantha spissa, which had the same number and shape of spines and was very similar. Subsequent authors refined Nicolet's species, and in a 1996 publication Herbert Levi wrote, "All Nicolet's species seem to belong in Phoroncidia (Theridiidae)." Levi transferred the 14-spined taxon spissa, described by Nicolet as very similar to G. flava, to the genus Phoroncidia, creating the new combination Phoroncidia spissa. However, Levi did not explicitly address G. flava, so it remains in Gasteracantha as of November 2019, though its purported sister species now belongs to Phoroncidia and no other Gasteracantha species has more than six spines.
Cyrtarachninae is a subfamily of spiders in the family Araneidae. The group has been circumscribed in several different ways. It originated as the group Cyrtarachneae, described by Eugène Simon in 1892. The group was later treated at different ranks: as a tribe, both under Simon's name and as Cyrtarachnini, and as the subfamily Cyrtarachninae. Circumscriptions have varied. The broadest circumscription, Cyrtarachninae sensu lato (s.l.), includes three of Simon's original groups, including the bolas spiders. Unlike most araneids, members of the subfamily do not construct orb webs, some not using webs at all to capture prey, some using one or more sticky drops on a single line, while others construct webs with few widely spaced non-spiral threads, some triangular. Many have been shown to attract prey by producing analogues of insect sex pheromones, particularly to attract male moths. Adult females may mimic snails, bird droppings and other objects, and so are able to remain exposed during the day time, capturing prey at night.
Ordgarius sexspinosus is a species of spider in the orb-weaver spider family Araneidae, found from India to Japan and Indonesia. O. monstrosus is a bolas spider. Rather than using a web, adult females catch their prey by using a line with one or two sticky drops which they swing.
Pasilobus bufoninus is a species of spider in the orb-weaver spider family Araneidae, found in Taiwan and Indonesia.
Popperaneus is a small genus of South American orb-weaver spiders first described by J. Cabra-García and Gustavo Hormiga in 2020. As of November 2021 it contains only two species, both transferred from Wagneria: P. gavensis and P. iguape.
Micrathena yanomami is a species of orb-weaver spider described in 2011. Its distribution includes French Guiana, Brazil, and Peru. The species was first described by arachnologists Ivan Magalhães and Adalberto Santos.
