Ochyroceratidae Explained

Ochyroceratidae is a six-eyed spider family, with 165 described species in ten genera. They are common inhabitants of caves and the tropical forest litter of South Africa, the Caribbean, Asia and South America.^[1] Considered an ecological counterpart of the Linyphiidae of the northern temperate zone,^[2] species are especially diverse in the Indo-Pacific region.

These spiders build small, irregular sheet-webs in dark, damp places and typically carry eggs in their chelicerae until they hatch. Body length can range from 0.6to, and some species with very long legs (Althepus, Leclercera) are superficially similar to members of Pholcidae.^[2] Differences between males and females are still relatively unknown, but at least one species in the genus Theotima (T. minutissima) was shown to be parthenogenetic.^[3]

Genera

See main article: List of Ochyroceratidae species., the World Spider Catalog accepts the following genera:^[4]

• Dundocera Machado, 1951 — Angola
• Euso Saaristo, 2001 — Seychelles
• Fageicera Dumitrescu & Georgescu, 1992 — Cuba, Colombia
• Lundacera Machado, 1951 — Angola
• Ochyrocera Simon, 1892 — Caribbean, South America, Mexico, Guatemala, Samoa
• Ouette Saaristo, 1998 — China, Seychelles
• Psiloochyrocera Baert, 2014 — Ecuador
• Roche Saaristo, 1998 — Seychelles
• Speocera Berland, 1914 — South America, Africa, Asia, Oceania, Cuba
• Theotima Simon, 1893 — Panama, Mexico, Caribbean, South America, Africa, Germany
• †Priscaleclercera Wunderlich 2017 — Burmese amber, Myanmar, Cenomanian

See also

• List of Ochyroceratidae species

External links

• National Geographic (2004): "New" Spider Species Weaves Uncommonly Regular Webs

Notes and References

1. Baptista. R.L.C.. 2003. Speocera eleonorae sp. n., the first troglomorphic spider from Brazilian caves (Araneae: Ochyroceratidae). Revista Ibérica de Aracnología. 7. 221–224. 2006-07-10. https://web.archive.org/web/20070221162537/http://acd.ufrj.br/mndi/Aracnologia/aracnopdfs/221%20224%20Speocera.pdf. 2007-02-21. dead.
2. Tong. Yangfeng. Li. Shuqiang. 2007. First records of the family Ochyroceratidae (Arachnida: Araneae) from China, with descriptions of a new genus and eight new species. The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology. 55. 1. 63–76.
3. Edwards. G.B.. 2003. Observations of Theotima minutissimus (Araneae, Ochyroceratidae), a parthenogenetic spider. The Journal of Arachnology. 31. 2. 274–277. 10.1636/0161-8202(2003)031[0274:OOTMAO]2.0.CO;2. 1705695.
4. Web site: Family: Ochyroceratidae Fage, 1912. World Spider Catalog. 2019-04-22. Natural History Museum Bern.