Nicodamidae

Nicodamus mainae, copyright Ron 'n' Beth's Pics.

Belongs within: Neocribellatae.

The Nicodamidae are an Australasian group of spiders that construct small sheet webs close to ground level.

Characters (from Jocqué & Dippenaar-Schoeman 2007): Small to large araneomorph spiders; three tarsal claws; cribellate or ecribellate; entelegyne; eight eyes; male palpal tibia with large dorsal apophysis; tarsi and metatarsi IV lacking trichobothria; chelicerae with one distal tooth on promargin only.

<==Nicodamidae BS09
    |  i. s.: Ambicodamus Harvey 1995 JD-S07
    |           `--A. marae BS09
    |         Dimidamus Harvey 1995 JD-S07
    |         Durodamus Harvey 1995 JD-S07
    |         Litodamus Harvey 1995 JD-S07
    |         Oncodamus Harvey 1995 JD-S07
    |--Megadictyninae [Megadictynidae] PVD10
    |    |--Megadictyna Dahl 1906 BS09, PVD10
    |    |    `--*M. thilenii Dahl 1906 PVD10 [incl. Ihurakius forsteri Marples 1959 NS00]
    |    `--Forstertyna Harvey 1995 PVD10
    |         `--*F. marplesi (Forster 1970) PVD10
    `--+--Novodamus Harvey 1995 BS09, JD-S07
       `--Nicodamus Simon 1887 BS09, JD-S07 [Nicodaminae]
            |--N. bicolor FF99
            `--N. mainae JD-S07

*Type species of generic name indicated

REFERENCES

[BS09] Blackledge, T. A., N. Scharff, J. A. Coddington, T. Szüts, J. W. Wenzel, C. Y. Hayashi & I. Agnarsson. 2009. Reconstructing web evolution and spider diversification in the molecular era. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 106 (13): 5229–5234.

[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).

[NS00] Nicholls, D. C., P. J. Sirvid, S. D. Pollard & M. Walker. 2000. A list of arachnid primary types held in Canterbury Museum. Records of the Canterbury Museum 14: 37–48.

[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).