Hexathelidae

Hexathelidae is a family of mygalomorph spiders. It is one of a number of families and genera of spiders known as tunnelweb or funnel-web spiders. In 2018, the family was substantially reduced in size by genera being moved to three separate families: Atracidae, Macrothelidae and Porrhothelidae.

Hexathelidae

Bryce McQuillan from Hamilton, Rototuna, New Zealand · CC BY-SA 2.0 · 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
venomous funnel-web tarantulaPBDB
Sits inside
AvicularioideaPBDB
Life habit
solitaryPBDB, for Arachnida
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arachnida
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Arachnida

Time the record covers

At most 6.6 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 100.5 Mya and 93.9 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Early Cretaceous — about 0 of 3 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 3 of 3 occurrencesLate Cretaceous101–100 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences100–100 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences100–100 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences100–100 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences100–99 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences99–99 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences99–99 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences99–99 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences99–98 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences98–98 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences98–98 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences98–98 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences98–97 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences97–97 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences97–97 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences97–97 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences97–96 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences96–96 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences96–96 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences96–96 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences96–95 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences95–95 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences95–95 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences95–95 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences95–94 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences94–94 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences94–94 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences94–94 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences101 Mya93.4 Mya

3 occurrences of Hexathelidae on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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

3 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.

Hexathelidae and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Hexathelidae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

471 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Hexathelidae, 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

2 references

Each of the 3 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Hexathelidae

Credit
Bryce McQuillan from Hamilton, Rototuna, New Zealand
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Hexathelidae was found in Sketchfab.

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 itAvicularioidea through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Simon 1892