Araneus

Araneus is a genus of common orb-weaving spiders with more than 500 species, among which are the European garden spider and the barn spider. The genus was erected by Carl Alexander Clerck in 1757.

Araneus

Chfab · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
AraneidaePBDB
Life habit
solitaryPBDB, for Arachnida
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arachnida
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Arachnida

Time the record covers

At least 108 million years on record.

The record covers at least 121.4 Mya to 12.8 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 125.77 Mya to 11.63 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 5 of 28 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 28 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 28 occurrencesEocene — about 13 of 28 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 28 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 9 of 28 occurrencesMiocene128–124 Mya — about 2 occurrences124–120 Mya — about 3 occurrences53–49 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences49–45 Mya — about 1 occurrence41–37 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences37–33 Mya — about 11 occurrences29–25 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences25–21 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences21–17 Mya — about 5 occurrences17–13 Mya — about 2 occurrences13–9.3 Mya — about 1 occurrence121.4 Mya12.8 Mya128 Mya9 Mya

28 occurrences of Araneus on record, most of them in the Eocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

28 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

5 formations

Florissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WShanwang — 36.55°N, 118.71°EYixian — 41.19°N, 119.21°EYixian — 41.62°N, 120.83°EGreen River — 41.56°N, 109.55°WUpper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°E

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The named rock units Araneus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Araneus and its relatives

Eocene

Where Araneus and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

1,640 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Araneus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

11 references

Each of the 28 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Araneus

Credit
Chfab
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itAraneidae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Clerck 1757