Atypus
Atypus, also called purseweb spiders, is a genus of atypical tarantulas first described by Pierre André Latreille in 1804. It occurs in Eurasia, with one species reaching into North Africa. Only three of the described species occur in Europe: A. piceus, A. affinis, and A. muralis. Specimens from the USA formerly known as A. snetsingeri represent an introduced population of A. karschi.

Daiju Azuma · CC BY-SA 2.5 · 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
- AtypidaePBDB
- Life habit
- solitaryPBDB, for Arachnida
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arachnida
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Arachnida
Time the record covers
At most 3.9 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 37.71 Mya and 33.9 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Atypus 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
1 occurrences- Eocene100%
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.
Atypus and its relatives
EoceneWhere Atypus and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
312 taxa- Agraylea electroscientia1 site
- Alicodoxa rasnitsyni1 site
- Allacrotelsa dubia1 site
- Alticini1 site
- Ambositra epicnemia1 site
- Ambositra villumi1 site
- Ampulicomorpha succinalis1 site
- Anaspis (Spanisa) horaki1 site
- Antephilorhizus pripiatiensis1 site
- Arcanys rostratus1 site
- Archaeocercus schuvachinae1 site
- Archaeogryon floridus1 site
- Archaeoneureclipsis martynovi1 site
- Archaeotinodes igneusaper1 site
- Archaeotinodes malickyi1 site
- Archealtica convexa1 site
- Archemyiomma schaeferi1 site
- Archistempellina bifurca1 site
- Archistempellina falcifera1 site
- Archistempellina perkovskyi1 site
- Atyphohelea cothurnata1 site
- Bacanius (Gomyister) caterinoi1 site
- Baltostigus horribilis1 site
- Berothidae1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Atypus, 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
1 referenceEach of the 1 occurrence 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Atypus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Daiju Azuma
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.5
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Atypus was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Atypus”
- 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 itAtypidae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Latreille 1804