Ctenidae

Male Ctenus amphora, copyright Thiago G. Carvalho.

Belongs within: Dionycha.

The Ctenidae, tropical wolf spiders, are a group of actively hunting spiders that can be distinguished from true wolf spiders by the differences in their eye arrangements, with ctenids having the eye rows strongly recurved in frontal view to give a 2-4-2 arrangement in dorsal view. The ovoid carapace bears a deep depression in members of the subfamily Acantheinae but is high in the region of the fovea in Cteninae (Jocqué & Dippenaar-Schoeman 2007). The genus Ciba includes two blind species found in caves in Cuba and Hispaniola (Bloom, Binford et al. 2014).

Characters (from Jocqué & Dippenaar-Schoeman 2007): Small to very large; eight eyes present in three rows, anterior lateral eyes between posterior median and posterior lateral eyes; legs with trochanters deeply notched, two tarsal claws; usually ecribellate (rarely cribellate); anterior spinnerets conical, not widely separated; entelegyne, male palp with dorsally concave median apophysis; epigyne with horns.

Ctenidae
    |--Acantheinae JD-S07
    |--Viridasiinae JD-S07
    `--Cteninae SB01
         |--Ctenopsis Schmidt 1954 SB01
         |--Itatiaya Mello-Leitão 1915 SB01
         |--Ohvida BB14
         |--Isoctenus Bertkau 1880 SB01
         |    `--I. coxalis (Pickard-Cambridge 1902) FM11
         |--Ciba Bloom, Binford et al. 2014 BB14
         |    |--*C. calzada (Alayón 1985) [=Ctenus calzada] BB14
         |    `--C. seibo Alayon & Agnarsson in Bloom, Binford et al. 2014 BB14
         `--Ctenus Walckenaer 1805 SB01
              |  i. s.: *C. dubius Walckenaer 1805 SB01
              |         ‘Phoneutria’ decora Gerstäcker 1873 SB01
              |         C. dreyeri Strand 1906 J98
              |         C. fasciatus AM07
              |         C. kingsleyi JD-S07
              |         C. palembangensis Strand 1906 J98
              |         C. peregrinus Pickard-Cambridge 1900 SB01
              |         C. pergulanus JD-S07
              |         C. punctulatus B06
              |         C. trabifer Thorell 1887 K92
              |         C. unilineatus Simon 1897 [=Phoneutria unilineata] SB01
              |         C. valvularis (Van Hass 1882) [=Leptoctenus valvularis] T94
              |         C. velox SB01
              |         C. vividus SB01
              |--C. maculisternis Strand 1910 SB01
              `--+--+--C. coxalis Pickard-Cambridge 1902 SB01
                 |  `--+--C. longipes Keyserling 1891 SB01
                 |     `--C. taeniatus Keyserling 1891 SB01
                 `--+--Centroctenus Mello-Leitã 1929 SB01
                    |    |--C. auberti (Caporiacco 1954) SB01
                    |    `--C. ocelliventer (Strand 1910) SB01
                    `--+--+--C. inaja Höfer, Brescovit & Gasnier 1994 SB01
                       |  `--+--C. amphora Mello-Leitão 1930 SB01
                       |     `--C. crulsi Mello-Leitão 1930 SB01
                       `--+--C. villasboasi Mello-Leitão 1949 SB01
                          `--+--Oligoctenus Simon 1887 SB01
                             |    `--O. ornatus (Keyserling 1877) SB01
                             `--Phoneutria Perty 1833 [Phoneutriinae] SB01
                                  |  i. s.: P. eickstedtae Martins & Bertani 2007 FM11
                                  |         P. ochracea Koch 1848 (n. d.) SB01
                                  |         P. rufibarbis Perty 1833 (n. d.) [=Ctenus rufibarbis] SB01
                                  |--+--P. boliviensis (Pickard-Cambridge 1897) (see below for synonymy) SB01
                                  |  `--P. nigriventer (Keyserling 1891) (see below for synonymy) SB01
                                  `--+--P. reidyi (Pickard-Cambridge 1897) (see below for synonymy) SB01
                                     `--+--*P. fera Perty 1833 (see below for synonymy) SB01
                                        `--P. bahiensis Simó & Brescovit 2001 SB01

Ctenidae incertae sedis:
  Africactenus JD-S07
    |--A. decorosus JD-S07
    |--A. monitor JD-S07
    `--A. tenuitarsis (Strand 1908) [=Caloctenus gracilitarsis Strand 1907 (preoc.), C. tenuitarsis] J98
  Microctenus Keyserling 1877 SB01
  Parabatinga brevipes (Keyserling 1891) FM11
  Janusia muiri (Gray 1973) BB14
  Amauropelma undarra (Raven et al. 2001) BB14
  Trujillina JD-S07
  Leptoctenus byrrhus JD-S07
  Petaloctenus bossema JD-S07
  Nanoctenus longipes Wunderlich 1988 S93

Phoneutria boliviensis (Pickard-Cambridge 1897) [=Ctenus boliviensis; incl. C. chilesicus Strand 1915, Phoneutria colombiana Schmidt 1954, C. depilatus Strand 1910, P. depilata, C. nigriventroides Strand 1907, P. nigriventroides, C. peregrinoides Strand 1910, C. signativenter Strand 1910, C. valdehirsutulus Strand 1910] SB01

*Phoneutria fera Perty 1833 [=Ctenus ferus, incl. C. sus Strand 1910, Phoneutria sus] SB01

Phoneutria nigriventer (Keyserling 1891) [=Ctenus nigriventer; incl. C. keyserlingi Pickard-Cambridge 1897, Phoneutria keyserlingi, C. luederwaldti Mello-Leitão 1927, P. luederwaldti, C. paca Mello-Leitão 1922, P. paca, C. pertyi Pickard-Cambridge 1897, P. pertyi, C. rufichelis Mello-Leitão 1917, P. rufichelis] SB01

Phoneutria reidyi (Pickard-Cambridge 1897) [=Ctenus reidyi; incl. C. andrewsi Pickard-Cambridge 1897, Phoneutria andrewsi, C. forcipatus Mello-Leitão 1922] SB01

*Type species of generic name indicated

REFERENCES

[AM07] Acosta, L. E., & G. Machado. 2007. Diet and foraging. In: Pinto-da-Rocha, R., G. Machado & G. Giribet (eds) Harvestmen: The Biology of Opiliones pp. 309–338. Harvard University Press: Cambridge (Massachusetts).

[B06] Banks, N. 1906. Arachnida from the Bahamas. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 22: 185–189.

[BB14] Bloom, T., G. Binford, L. A. Esposito, G. A. Garcia, I. Peterson, A. Nishida, K. Loubet-Senear & I. Agnarsson. 2014. Discovery of two new species of eyeless spiders within a single Hispaniola cave. Journal of Arachnology 42 (2): 148–154.

[FM11] Freire-Jr, G. de B., & P. C. Motta. 2011. Effects of experimental fire regimes on the abundance and diversity of cursorial arachnids of Brazilian savannah (cerrado biome). Journal of Arachnology 39 (2): 263–272.

[J98] Jäger, P. 1998. Das Typenmaterial der Spinnentiere (Arachnida: Acari, Amblypygi, Araneae, Opiliones, Pseudoscorpiones, Scorpiones, Uropygi) aus dem Museum Wiesbaden. Jahrbuecher des Nassauischen Vereins fuer Naturkunde 119: 81–91.

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

[K92] Karsch, F. 1892. Arachniden von Ceylon und von Minikoy gesammelt von den Herren Doctoren P. und F. Sarasin. Berliner Entomologische Zeitschrift 36 (2): 267–310.

[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.

[SB01] Simó, M., & A. D. Brescovit. 2001. Revision and cladistic analysis of the Neotropical spider genus Phoneutria Perty, 1833 (Araneae, Ctenidae), with notes on related Cteninae. Bulletin of the British Arachnological Society 12 (2): 67–82.

[T94] Thorell, T. 1894. Förteckning öfver Arachnider från Java och närgränsande öar, insamlade af docenten D:r Carl Aurivillius; jemte beskrifingar å några sydasiatiska och sydamerikanska Spindlar. Bihang till K. Svenska Vetenskaps-Akademiens Handlingar 20 pt 4 (4): 1–63.

Last updated: 4 October 2019.