Argyroneta

The diving bell spider or water spider is the only species of spider known to live almost entirely under water. It is the only member of the genus Argyroneta and the type genus of the family Argyronetidae. When out of the water, the spider ranges in colour from mid to dark brown, although the hairs on the abdomen give it a dark grey, velvet-like appearance. It is native to freshwater habitats in Europe and Asia.

Argyroneta

Norbert Schuller Baupi · 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
Sits inside
DictynidaePBDB
Life habit
solitaryPBDB, for Arachnida
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arachnida
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Arachnida

Time the record covers

At least 10 million years on record.

The record covers at least 23.04 Mya to 12.8 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 27.3 Mya to 11.63 Mya.

Oligocene — about 1 of 2 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 1 of 2 occurrencesMiocene28–27 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences27–27 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences27–26 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences26–26 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences26–25 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences25–24 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences24–24 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences24–23 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences23–23 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences23.04 Mya12.8 Mya27.8 Mya11.1 Mya

2 occurrences of Argyroneta on record. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

2 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

1 formation

Upper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Argyroneta has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Found in the same rock

266 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Argyroneta, and this reads all of them. 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

2 references

Each of the 2 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Argyroneta

Credit
Norbert Schuller Baupi
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Argyroneta was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itDictynidae through timeThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Latreille 1804