Amaurobiidae

Tangled nest spiders
Callobius sp.
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Arachnida
Order:	Araneae
Suborder:	Araneomorphae
Superfamily:	Amaurobioidea
Family:	Amaurobiidae Thorell, 1870
Genera
Callobius Coras Amaurobius Coelotes Draconarius Paracoelotes Pimus Pireneitega Rubrius many others
Diversity
71 genera, 682 species

Pimus sp.

The Amaurobiidae are three-clawed cribellate or ecribellate spiders found in most parts of the world and difficult to distinguish from related spiders in other families, especially Agelenidae, Desidae and Amphinectidae. Their intra- and interfamilial relationships are contentious. In Spider Families of the World, 2007, they were represented by 69 genera and about 640 species in 5 subfamilies.

Coras sp., probably medicinalis

In Australia they are small to medium-sized entelgyne spiders with generous sheet webs across the floor of rainforests. They generally have eight similar eyes in two conservatively curved rows. They often have a calamistrum on metatarsus IV associated with a cribellum. Australian Amaurobiids may be distinguished from Amphinectidae by the absence of a pre-tarsal fracture and the presence of a retrocoxal hymen on coxa I.

External links

• [2] The World Spider Catalog, Version 12.0 by Norman I. Platnick
• [3] Spider Families of the World, Publisher: African Museum in Tervuren Author:R. Jocqué, A.S. Dippenaar-Schoeman

See also

• List of Amaurobiidae species
• Spider families

• Narrated Video of A. fenestralis
• Video of Amaurobiid from Ireland