- Ochyroceratidae
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Ochyroceratidae Scientific classification Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Arthropoda Class: Arachnida Order: Araneae Suborder: Araneomorphae Superfamily: Leptonetoidea Family: Ochyroceratidae
Fage, 1912Genera see text
Diversity 14 genera, 154 species 
The Ochyroceratidae are a six-eyed spider family in the Leptonetoidea superfamily, with 154 described species in 14 genera.
Ochyroceratidae are common inhabitants of the tropical forest litter and caves in South Africa, the Caribbean and Asia, especially species rich in the Indo-Pacific, where they constitute one of the ecological counterparts of the Linyphiidae of the northern temperate zone[1].
They build small, irregular sheet-webs in dark, damp places around leaves, sticks and logs, and typically carry their eggs in their chelicerae until they hatch. Their body length ranges from 0.6 to 3 millimeters. Some species in the subfamily Psilodercinae (Althepus, Leclercera) with very long legs are superficially similar to Pholcidae.[1]
At least one species in the genus Theotima (the only 0.9mm long T. minutissima) was shown to be parthenogenetic.
Contents
Genera
- Althepus Thorell, 1898 (South Asia)
- Dundocera Machado, 1951 (Angola)
- Euso Saaristo, 2001 (Seychelles)
- Fageicera Dumitrescu & Georgescu, 1992 (Cuba)
- Flexicrurum Tong & Li, 2007 (China)
- Leclercera Deeleman-Reinhold, 1995 (South Asia)
- Lundacera Machado, 1951 (Angola)
- Merizocera Fage, 1912 (South Asia)
- Ochyrocera Simon, 1891 (Mexico to Peru)
- Ouette Saaristo, 1998 (Seychelles)
- Psiloderces Simon, 1892 (South Asia)
- Roche Saaristo, 1998 (Seychelles)
- Speocera Berland, 1914 (South Asia, South America, Africa)
- Theotima Simon, 1893 (Central and South America, Africa, Asia, Pacific Islands)
See also
- List of Ochyroceratidae species
- Spider families
Footnotes
References
- The World Spider Catalog, V8.0
- Edwards, G.B. (2003): Observations of Theotima minutissimus (Araneae, Ochyroceratidae), a parthenogenetic spider. The Journal of Arachnology 31: 274-277. PDF
- 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. PDF
- 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. PDF
External links
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