Thomisidae

The Thomisidae are a family of spiders, including about 170 genera and over 2,100 species. The common name crab spider is often linked to species in this family, but may also be used for spiders from other families. Many members of this family are also known as flower spiders or flower crab spiders.

Thomisidae

Vengolis · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
crab spiderPBDB
Sits inside
LycosoideaPBDB
Life habit
solitaryPBDB, for Arachnida
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arachnida
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Arachnida

Time the record covers

At least 93 million years on record.

The record covers at least 93.9 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 106.3 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 0 of 57 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 1 of 57 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 57 occurrencesEocene — about 35 of 57 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 2 of 57 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 15 of 57 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 2 of 57 occurrencesPleistocene — about 1 of 57 occurrences108–105 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences105–101 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences101–98 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences98–94 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences94–90 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences54–51 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences51–47 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences47–43 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences40–36 Mya — about 14 occurrences36–33 Mya — about 21 occurrences33–29 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences29–25 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences25–22 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences22–18 Mya — about 5 occurrences18–14 Mya — about 5 occurrences14–11 Mya — about 4 occurrences11–7.2 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences7.2–3.6 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences3.6–0 Mya — about 4 occurrences93.9 Mya11.7 ka108 Mya0 Mya

57 occurrences of Thomisidae 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

57 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

6 formations

Shanwang — 36.55°N, 118.71°EFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WUpper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°EImuruk Volcanics — 65.88°N, 163.13°WRandeck Maar — 48.57°N, 9.53°EGreen River — 39.72°N, 108.14°W

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The named rock units Thomisidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 42 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Thomisidae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Thomisidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

3,093 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 31 sites for Thomisidae, 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

27 references

Each of the 57 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. 15 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 Thomisidae

Credit
Vengolis
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Thomisidae 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 itLycosoidea through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Sundevall 1833