Pisauridae

Female nursery web spider Dolomedes minor guarding nursery web, copyright Bryce McQuillan.

Belongs within: Amaurobioidea.

The Pisauridae, nursery web spiders, are a cosmopolitan group of spiders in which the females carry the egg-case with the chelicerae underneath the sternum, before placing it in a nursery web constructed on vegetation to house the spiderlings. The adult spiders may be active hunters or may construct a sheet web with a large funnel often leading into the ground (Jocqué & Dippenaar-Schoeman 2007). Species of the cosmopolitan genus Dolomedes, the fishing spiders, are commonly found in association with water, capturing prey by running across its surface.

Characters (from Jocqué & Dippenaar-Schoeman 2007): Medium-sized to very large; eight eyes present in two, three or four rows, with at least one pair of eyes on shallow tubercles; legs with three tarsal claws, trochanters deeply notched, tarsi pseudosegmented; abdomen elongated, tapering towards rear; ecribellate; entelegyne.

<==Pisauridae [Halidae]
    |--Euprosthenops proximus Lessert 1916 JD-S07, HD-S02
    |--Afropisaura rothiformis (Strand 1908) JD-S07, J98 [=Pisaura rothiformis J98]
    |--Euprosthenopsis JD-S07
    |--Tolma Jocqué 1994 JD-S07
    |--Rothus JD-S07
    |--Eopisaurella valdespinosa Petrunkevitch 1958 S93
    |--Bradystichus [Bradystichinae] R14
    |--Propago debilis Petrunkevitch 1963 P92
    |--Pisaura Simon 1885 non Bonato 1793 (ICBN) JD-S07
    |    `--*P. mirabilis (Clerck 1757) C01, K55 [=Araneus mirabilis C01]
    |--Perenethis Koch 1879 K92
    |    `--P. unifasciata (Doleschall 1859) K92, D59 [=Dolomedes unifasciatus K92; incl. P. venusta Koch 1878 K92]
    |--Tetragonophthalma JD-S07
    |    `--‘Birabenia’ taeniata Mello-Leitão 1943 (n. d.) C90
    |--Hala Jocqué 1994 JD-S07
    |    `--H. paulyi JD-S07
    |--Ancylometes Bertkau 1880 [incl. Corinoctenus Mello-Leitão 1939] SB01
    |    |--A. bogotensis [incl. Phoneutria niveobarbata Mello-Leitão 1945] SB01
    |    `--A. rufus (Walckenaer 1837) L-M-HG08
    |--Esuritor S93
    |    |--E. aculeatus Petrunkevitch 1958 S93
    |    `--E. spinipes Petrunkevitch 1942 S93
    `--Dolomedes Latreille 1804 PVD10
         |--D. fimbriatus (Clerck 1757) K55 (see below for synonymy)
         |--D. albocinctus Doleschall 1859 D59
         |--D. aquaticus Goyen 1888 PVD10
         |--D. australianus (Koch 1865) B96
         |--D. clercki Simon 1937 K55
         |--D. eberhardarum Strand 1913 J98
         |--D. facetus Koch 1876 PVD10
         |--D. huttoni Hogg 1908 PVD10
         |--D. lateralis White 1849 PVD10
         |--D. imperiosus S99
         |--D. longimanus Stoliczka 1869 S69
         |--D. minor Koch 1876 PVD10
         |--D. mirabilis [=Lycosa (Dolomedes) mirabilis] G20
         |--D. mirificus Walckenaer 1837 PVD10
         |--D. neptunus Rainbow 1896 R96
         |--D. raptor (Bösenberg & Strand 1906) PY07
         |--D. sagittiger White 1849 PVD10
         |--D. schauinslandi Simon 1899 PVD10
         |--D. spinipes Rainbow 1896 R96
         |--D. sumatranus Strand 1906 J98
         |--D. tenebrosus Hentz 1844 SB14
         |--D. tridentatus Hogg 1911 PVD10
         |--D. trippi Hogg 1908 PVD10
         |--D. triton (Walckenaer 1837) SB14
         `--D. vittatus Walckenaer 1837 SB14

Dolomedes fimbriatus (Clerck 1757) K55 [=Araneus fimbriatus C01, Aranea fimbriata L58; incl. Aranea marginata C01, *Dolomedes marginatus C01]

*Type species of generic name indicated

REFERENCES

[B96] Brunet, B. 1996. Spiderwatch: A Guide to Australian Spiders. Reed New Holland: Sydney.

[C01] Cambridge, F. O. P. 1901. A revision of the genera of the Araneae or spiders with reference to their type species. Annals and Magazine of Natural History, series 7, 7: 51–65.

[C90] Capocasale, R. M. 1990. Las especies de la subfamilia Hippasinae de America del Sur (Araneae, Lycosidae). Journal of Arachnology 18: 131–142.

[D59] Doleschall, C. L. 1859. Tweede Bijdrage tot de kennis der Arachniden van den Indischen Archipel. Verhandelingen der Natuurkundige Vereeniging in Nederlandsch Indie [Acta Societatis Scientiarum Indo-Neêrlandicae] 5 (5): 1–60, pls 1–18.

[G20] Goldfuss, G. A. 1820. Handbuch der Naturgeschichte vol. 3. Handbuch der Zoologie pt 1. Johann Leonhard Schrag: Nürnberg.

[HD-S02] Haddad, C. R., & A. S. Dippenaar-Schoeman. 2002. The influence of mound structure on the diversity of spiders (Araneae) inhabiting the abandoned mounds of the snouted harvester termite Trinervitermes trinervoides. Journal of Arachnology 30 (2): 403–408.

[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.

[K55] Kraus, O. 1955. Spinnen von Korsika, Sardinien und Elba (Arach., Araneae). Senckenbergiana Biologica 36: 371–394.

[L58] Linnaeus, C. 1758. Systema Naturae per Regna Tria Naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis. Tomus I. Editio decima, reformata. Laurentii Salvii: Holmiae.

[L-M-HG08] Lo-Man-Hung, N. F., T. A. Gardner, M. A. Ribeiro-Júnior, J. Barlow & A. B. Bonaldo. 2008. The value of primary, secondary, and plantation forests for Neotropical epigeic arachnids. Journal of Arachnology 36 (2): 394–401.

[PVD10] Paquin, P., C. J. Vink & N. Dupérré. 2010. Spiders of New Zealand: annotated family key and species list. Manaaki Whenua Press: Lincoln (New Zealand).

[PY07] Park, Y. C., J.-S. Yoo, M. P. Schwarz, N. Murphy & J.-P. Kim. 2007. Molecular phylogeny of east Asian wolf spiders (Araneae: Lycosidae) inferred from mitochondrial 12S ribosomal DNA. Annals of the Entomological Society of America 100 (1): 1–8.

[P92] Poinar, G. O., Jr. 1992. Life in Amber. Stanford University Press: Stanford.

[R96] Rainbow, W. J. 1896. Descriptions of some new Araneidae of New South Wales. No. 6. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 21 (3): 320–344, pls 18–20.

[R14] Ramírez, M. J. 2014. The morphology and phylogeny of dionychan spiders (Araneae: Araneomorphae). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 390: 1–374.

[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.

[S99] Simon, E. 1899. Ergebnisse einer Reise nach dem Pacific (Schauinsland 1896–1897. Zoologische Jahrbücher, Abteilung für Systematik, Geographie un Biologie der Thiere 12 (4): 411–437.

[S69] Stoliczka, F. 1869. Contribution to the knowledge of Indian Arachnoidea. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 38 pt 2 (4): 201–251, pls 18–20.

[SB14] Suter, R. B., & K. Benson. 2014. Nocturnal, diurnal, crepuscular: activity assessments of Pisauridae and Lycosidae. Journal of Arachnology 42 (2): 178–191.

Last updated: 22 January 2022.