Theridiidae

Theridiidae, also known as the tangle-web spiders, cobweb spiders and comb-footed spiders, is a large family of araneomorph spiders first described by Carl Jakob Sundevall in 1833. This diverse, globally distributed family includes around 3,000 species in 128 genera, and is the most common arthropod group found in human dwellings throughout the world.

Theridiidae

Didier Descouens · CC BY-SA 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
cobweb spiderPBDB
Sits inside
AraneoideaPBDB
Life habit
solitaryPBDB, for Arachnida
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arachnida
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Arachnida

Time the record covers

At least 121 million years on record.

The record covers at least 121.4 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 125.77 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 1 of 368 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 5 of 368 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 368 occurrencesEocene — about 268 of 368 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 3 of 368 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 81 of 368 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 368 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 368 occurrences128–124 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences124–120 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences103–98 Mya — about 1 occurrence98–94 Mya — about 3 occurrences94–90 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences86–81 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences81–77 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences77–73 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences73–68 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences60–56 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences56–51 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences51–47 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences38–34 Mya — about 245 occurrences34–30 Mya — about 22 occurrences30–26 Mya — about 1 occurrence26–21 Mya — about 4 occurrences21–17 Mya — about 40 occurrences17–13 Mya — about 35 occurrences13–8.6 Mya — about 3 occurrences4.3–0 Mya — about 10 occurrences121.4 Mya11.7 ka128 Mya0 Mya

368 occurrences of Theridiidae 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

368 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

6 formations

Upper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°ENiveau du gypse d'Aix — 43.52°N, 5.45°EYixian — 41.62°N, 120.83°ELa Toca — 19.55°N, 70.61°WMazantic Shale — 17.15°N, 92.70°WKabaw — 21.68°N, 94.08°E

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The named rock units Theridiidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 359 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Theridiidae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Theridiidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

3,539 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 68 sites for Theridiidae, and this reads all of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. 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

39 references

Each of the 368 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. 27 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 content1

Picture of Theridiidae

Credit
Didier Descouens
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Theridiidae 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 itAraneoidea through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Sundevall 1833