Mygalomorphae

The Mygalomorphae, or mygalomorphs, are an infraorder of spiders, and comprise one of three major groups of living spiders with over 3,000 species, found on all continents except Antarctica. Many members are known as trapdoor spiders due to their creation of trapdoors over their burrows. Other prominent groups include Australian funnel web spiders and tarantulas, with the latter accounting for around one third of all mygalomorphs.

Mygalomorphae

Fir0002 · GFDL 1.2 · 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
OpisthothelaePBDB
Life habit
solitaryPBDB, for Arachnida
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arachnida
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Arachnida

Time the record covers

At least 245 million years on record.

The record covers at least 245.19 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 247 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Triassic — about 0 of 97 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 4 of 97 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 2 of 97 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 97 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 97 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 97 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 14 of 97 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 32 of 97 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 97 occurrencesEocene — about 29 of 97 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 97 occurrencesMiocene — about 15 of 97 occurrencesPliocene — about 0 of 97 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 97 occurrences252–244 Mya — about 4 occurrences235–227 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences227–218 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences218–210 Mya — about 1 occurrence210–202 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences126–118 Mya — about 6 occurrences118–109 Mya — about 7 occurrences109–101 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences101–92 Mya — about 31 occurrences84–76 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences76–67 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences42–34 Mya — about 29 occurrences25–17 Mya — about 9 occurrences17–8.4 Mya — about 6 occurrences8.4–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence245.19 Mya11.7 ka252 Mya0 Mya

97 occurrences of Mygalomorphae on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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

97 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

11 formations

Crato — 7.13°S, 39.70°WGrès à Voltzia — 48.83°N, 7.24°EGrès à Voltzia — 48.72°N, 7.17°EDzun-Bain — 45.45°N, 99.13°EFoulden Hills Diatomite — 45.53°S, 170.22°EGrès à Meules — 48.91°N, 7.21°EFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WDolomia di Forni — 46.38°N, 12.59°EArgun — 51.71°N, 113.39°EBlackstone — 27.60°S, 152.83°EJinju — 35.07°N, 128.07°EKabaw — 21.68°N, 94.08°E

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The named rock units Mygalomorphae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 74 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Mygalomorphae and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Mygalomorphae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

4,090 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 52 sites for Mygalomorphae, 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

33 references

Each of the 97 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. 21 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 Mygalomorphae

Credit
Fir0002
Licence
GFDL 1.2
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Mygalomorphae 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 itOpisthothelae through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Pocock 1892