Araneidae

Orb-weaver spiders are members of the spider family Araneidae. They are the most common group of builders of spiral wheel-shaped webs often found in gardens, fields, and forests. The English word "orb" can mean "circular", hence the English name of the group. Araneids have eight similar eyes, hairy or spiny legs, and no stridulating organs.

Araneidae

Didier Descouens · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
orb-weaving spiderPBDB
Sits inside
OrbipuraePBDB
Life habit
solitaryPBDB, for Arachnida
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arachnida
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Arachnida

Time the record covers

At least 121 million years on record.

The record covers at least 121.4 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 125.77 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 6 of 123 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 3 of 123 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 123 occurrencesEocene — about 82 of 123 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 2 of 123 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 28 of 123 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 123 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 123 occurrences128–124 Mya — about 2 occurrences124–120 Mya — about 4 occurrences107–103 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences103–98 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences98–94 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences94–90 Mya — about 1 occurrence60–56 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences56–51 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences51–47 Mya — about 2 occurrences47–43 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences38–34 Mya — about 72 occurrences34–30 Mya — about 7 occurrences30–26 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences26–21 Mya — about 2 occurrences21–17 Mya — about 16 occurrences17–13 Mya — about 10 occurrences13–8.6 Mya — about 1 occurrence4.3–0 Mya — about 2 occurrences121.4 Mya11.7 ka128 Mya0 Mya

123 occurrences of Araneidae on record, most of them in the Eocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

123 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

9 formations

Florissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WShanwang — 36.55°N, 118.71°EYixian — 41.19°N, 119.21°EYixian — 41.62°N, 120.83°EGreen River — 41.56°N, 109.55°WRaritan — 40.47°N, 74.32°WUpper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°ERott — 50.75°N, 7.26°EBouldnor — 50.74°N, 1.36°WPalana — 27.87°N, 72.87°E

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The named rock units Araneidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 86 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Araneidae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Araneidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

3,814 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 49 sites for Araneidae, and this reads all of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

36 references

Each of the 123 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 24 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Araneidae

Credit
Didier Descouens
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Araneidae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itOrbipurae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Simon 1895