Hersiliidae

Hersiliidae is a tropical and subtropical family of spiders first described by Tamerlan Thorell in 1869, which are commonly known as tree trunk spiders. They have two prominent spinnerets that are almost as long as their abdomen, earning them another nickname, the "two-tailed spiders". They range in size from 10 to 18 mm long.

Hersiliidae

Peter Webb · CC BY 4.0 · 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
Also called
tree trunk spiderPBDB
Sits inside
OecobioideaPBDB
Life habit
solitaryPBDB, for Arachnida
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arachnida
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Arachnida

Time the record covers

At least 93 million years on record.

The record covers at least 93.9 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 100.5 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 0 of 35 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 7 of 35 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 35 occurrencesEocene — about 12 of 35 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 35 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 11 of 35 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 35 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 35 occurrences103–99 Mya — about 1 occurrence99–96 Mya — about 3 occurrences96–92 Mya — about 2 occurrences89–85 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences85–82 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences51–48 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences48–44 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences41–38 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences38–34 Mya — about 10 occurrences34–31 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences27–24 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences24–21 Mya — about 2 occurrences21–17 Mya — about 5 occurrences17–14 Mya — about 4 occurrences3.4–0 Mya — about 4 occurrences93.9 Mya11.7 ka103 Mya0 Mya

35 occurrences of Hersiliidae on record, most of them in the Eocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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

35 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

3 formations

Niveau du gypse d'Aix — 43.52°N, 5.45°EMazantic Shale — 17.15°N, 92.70°WGreen River — 39.72°N, 108.14°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Hersiliidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 32 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Hersiliidae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Hersiliidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

2,742 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 21 sites for Hersiliidae, 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

24 references

Each of the 35 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. 12 further references are not listed. 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 Hersiliidae

Credit
Peter Webb
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Credit
Spider
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 itOecobioidea through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Thorell 1870