Biology:Caerostris
Caerostris, sometimes called bark spiders,[1] is a genus of orb-weaver spiders first described by Tamerlan Thorell in 1868.[2] Most species are found in south eastern Africa and neighboring Madagascar.[3]
Taxonomy
The genus Caerostris was erected in 1868 by Tamerlan Thorell with the type species being Epeira mitralis Vinson, 1863, which Thorell transferred to Caerostris mitralis.[3][2] Up to 2009, only 11 species had been described. A further species, C. darwini, was described in 2010,[4] and six more species in 2015.[1][3] Two of the "species", C. sexcuspidata and C. sumatrana, will probably need to be divided further to produce genetically uniform species.[1]
A molecular phylogenetic study of 12 of the species of Caerostris produced the phylogenetic tree shown below, showing that the African and Madagascan species form a monophyletic group.[1]
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African and Madagascan species |
Behavior
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Web of C. darwini
Species
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C. sexcuspidata on bark -
C. sexcuspidata -
C. extrusa -
Caerostris sp. -
C. vicina
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As of September 2025[update], this genus includes twenty species:[3]
- Caerostris almae Gregorič, 2015 – Madagascar
- Caerostris bankana Strand, 1915 – Madagascar
- Caerostris bojani Gregorič, 2015 – Madagascar
- Caerostris corticosa Pocock, 1902 – Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Eswatini
- Caerostris cowani Butler, 1882 – Madagascar
- Caerostris darwini Kuntner & Agnarsson, 2010 – Madagascar
- Caerostris ecclesiigera Butler, 1882 – Madagascar
- Caerostris extrusa Butler, 1882 – Madagascar
- Caerostris hirsuta (Simon, 1895) – Madagascar
- Caerostris indica Strand, 1915 – Myanmar
- Caerostris kuntneri Gregorič & Yu, 2025 – Madagascar
- Caerostris linnaeus Gregorič, 2015 – Mozambique
- Caerostris mayottensis Grasshoff, 1984 – Comoros, Mayotte
- Caerostris mitralis (Vinson, 1863) – Tanzania, DR Congo, Mozambique, Madagascar (type species)
- Caerostris pero Gregorič, 2015 – Madagascar
- Caerostris sexcuspidata (Fabricius, 1793) – Cameroon, Ethiopia, South Africa, Seychelles, Comoros, Madagascar
- Caerostris sumatrana Strand, 1915 – India, China, Laos, Malaysia, Borneo, Indonesia (Sumatra, Java)
- Caerostris tinamaze Gregorič, 2015 – South Africa
- Caerostris vicina (Blackwall, 1866) – Sub-Saharan Africa
- Caerostris wallacei Gregorič, Blackledge, Agnarsson & Kuntner, 2015 – Madagascar
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Gregorič, Matjaž; Blackledge, Todd A.; Agnarsson, Ingi; Kuntner, Matjaž (2015). "A molecular phylogeny of bark spiders reveals new species from Africa and Madagascar (Araneae: Araneidae: Caerostris)". Journal of Arachnology 43 (3): 293–312. doi:10.1636/0161-8202-43.3.293.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Thorell, T. (1868), "Araneae. Species novae minusve cognitae", in Virgin, C.A. (in Latin), Kongliga Svenska Fregatten Eugenies Resa omkring Jorden, Uppsala, pp. 1–34
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 "Genus Caerostris". World Spider Catalog. doi:10.24436/2. https://wsc.nmbe.ch/genus/289. Retrieved 26 September 2025.
- ↑ Kuntner, Matjaž; Agnarsson, Ingi (2010). "Web gigantism in Darwin's bark spider, a new species from Madagascar (Araneidae: Caerostris)". The Journal of Arachnology 38 (2): 346–356. doi:10.1636/B09-113.1. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/part/229227.
<ref> tag with name "Gras1984" defined in <references> is not used in prior text.Wikidata ☰ Q2932847 entry
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