Mysmenidae

Trogloneta granulum, from Pavouci.

Belongs within: Araneoidea.

The Mysmenidae are minute spiders found in crevices or leaf litter in very humid habitats. Whereas some members of the family construct sheet webs, others are kleptoparasites on the webs of other spiders (Jocqué & Dippenaar-Schoeman 2007).

Characters (from Jocqué & Dippenaar-Schoeman 2007): Very small; eight eyes; three tarsal claws; ecribellate; entelegyne; male with mating spine on metatarsus I (occasionally also on tibia I); cymbium of male palp with lobes or apophyses; female and sometimes males with sclerotised subdistal ventral spot on anterior femora.

<==Mysmenidae [Mysmeninae]
    |--Isela okuncana Griswold 1985 JD-S07, A02
    |--Kilifina JD-S07
    |--Maymena JD-S07
    |--Microdipoena Banks 1895 S03
    |    `--M. nyungwe Baert 1989 S03
    |--Mysmenella Brignoli 1980 MG03
    |    `--M. jobi (Kraus 1967) [=Mysmena jobi] MG03
    |--Mysmenopsis Simon 1897 S03
    |    |--M. pachacutec JD-S07
    |    `--M. viracocha JD-S07
    |--Trogloneta Simon 1922 S03
    |    |--T. granulum Simon 1922 S03
    |    `--T. madeirensis Wunderlich 1987 S03
    `--Mysmena Simon 1894 JD-S07
         |--M. leucoplagiata (Simon 1879) MG03
         |--M. succini (Petrunkevitch 1942) S93
         `--M. tasmaniae FF99

*Type species of generic name indicated

REFERENCES

[A02] Agnarsson, I. 2002. Sharing a web—on the relation of sociality and kleptoparasitism in theridiid spiders (Theridiidae, Araneae). Journal of Arachnology 30 (2): 181–188.

[FF99] Forster, R., & L. Forster. 1999. Spiders of New Zealand and their World-wide Kin. University of Otago Press: Dunedin (New Zealand).

[JD-S07] Jocqué, R., & A. S. Dippenaar-Schoeman. 2007. Spider Families of the World. Royal Museum for Central Africa: Tervuren (Belgium).

[MG03] Marusik, Yu. M., & E. F. Guseinov. 2003. Spiders (Arachnida: Aranei) of Azerbaijan. 1. New family and genus records. Arthropoda Selecta 12 (1): 29–46.

[S03] Schütt, K. 2003. Phylogeny of Symphytognathidae s.l. (Araneae, Araneoidea). Zoologica Scripta 32 (2): 129–151.

[S93] Selden, P. A. 1993. Arthropoda (Aglaspidida, Pycnogonida and Chelicerata). In: Benton, M. J. (ed.) The Fossil Record 2 pp. 297–320. Chapman & Hall: London.

Last updated: 22 September 2019.