Social spider

A Social spider is a spider species whose individuals form relatively long-lasting aggregations. Whereas most spiders are solitary and even aggressive toward conspecifics, some hundreds of species in several families show a tendency to live in groups, often referred to as colonies, and continue to provoke the curiosity of naturalists.

Spider sociality

No social spider species has yet been seen to exhibit the eusocial organization of termites, ants, highly social bees or social wasps.

Social spiders are more prominent in tropical regions, where large insects are more plentiful. The reason is that net area is maximized by dispersed solitary spiders, while colonies with a maze of nets are capable of capturing larger prey. Colony size tends to approximately maximize total biomass capture per spider. [Cite web | url=http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/08/07/0710603105.abstract | title=Cooperative capture of large prey solves scaling challenge faced by spider societies | work=by Eric C. Yip, Kimberly S. Powers, and Leticia Avilés]

Social spider families and genera [ [http://theridiidae.com/Ingi%20Agnarsson.html Ingi Agnarsson, PhD.: Social Spiders.] ]

*Agelenidae
**Agelena consociata (Pain 1964; Krafft 1970, 1975; Darchen 1980; Riechert 1985; Riechert et al. 1986; Tietjen 1986; Roeloffs & Riechert 1988; Furey & Riechert 1989, 1999)
**Agelena republicana (Darchen 1967a, 1976, 1981).
*Dictynidae
**Aebutina binotata (Simon 1892; Avilés 1993a, 2000; Avilés et al. 2001)
**Mallos gregalis (Diguet 1909; Burgess 1976, 1979a, b; Jackson & Smith 1978; Jackson 1979, 1980, 1982; Tietjen 1981, 1982, 1986a, b)
*Eresidae
**Stegodyphus dumicola (Kraus & Kraus 1988, 1990; Seibt & Wickler 1987, 1988a, b, 1990; Kraus 1988; Wickler & Seibt 1993; Henschel et al. 1995a, b, 1996; Henschel 1998; Seibt et al. 1998; Avilés et al. 1999; Ulbrich & Henschel 1999; Whitehouse & Lubin 1999; Amir et al. 2000; Schneider et al. 2001; Crouch & Malan 2002; Johannesen et al. 2002; Lubin & Crouch 2003)
**Stegodyphus mimosarum (Ward & Enders 1985; Ward 1986; Seibt & Wickler 1987, 1988a, b, 1990; Kraus & Kraus 1988, 1990; Wickler & Seibt 1986, 1993; Crouch & Lubin 2000; Crouch & Lubin 2001; Bodasing, Slotow & Crouch 2001; Ainsworth et al. 2002; Bodasing, Crouch & Slotow 2002; Lubin & Crouch 2003)
**Stegodyphus sarasinorum (Kraus 1988; Kraus & Kraus 1988, 1990; Kullmann et al. 1972; Bradoo 1972, 1983; Jacson & Joseph 1973; Willey & Jackson 1993; Smith & Engel 1994)
**Stegodyphus manaus Kraus & Kraus, 1992 (possibly social, see Kraus & Kraus 1992)
*Nesticidae Species not identified (Quintero & Amat 1995)
*Oxyopidae
**Tapinillus sp. (Aviés 1994; Avilés et al. 2001)
*Sparassidae
**Delena cancerides (Rowell 1987; Hancock & Rowell 1995; Rowell & Avilés 1995)
*Theridiidae
**Achaearanea disparata (Darchen 1968; Darchen & Ledoux 1978)
**Achaearanea vervortii (Levi et al. 1982; Lubin 1982, 1991)
**Achaearanea wau (Levi et al. 1982; Lubin 1982, 1991; Lubin & Robinson 1982)
**Anelosimus domingo (Levi 1963; Levi & Smith 1982; Rypstra & Tirey 1989; Avilés et al. 2001)
**Anelosimus eximius (Levi 1963; Vollrath 1982; Avilés 1992)
**Anelosimus guacamayos (Avilés et al., pers. comm.)
**Anelosimus oritoyacu (Avilés et al., pers. comm.)
**Anelosimus puravida (Agnarsson 2006a)
**Anelosimus lorenzo (Fowler & Levi 1979)
**Anelosimus rupununi (Levi 1963; Rypstra & Tirey 1989; Levi 1972)
**Theridion nigroannulatum (Avilés 1997; Avilés et al. 2001; Avilés et al. 2006)
*Thomisidae
**Diaea ergandros (Evans 1996)
**Diaea megagyna (Evans 1996)
**Diaea socialis (Evans 1996; Main 1988)

References

* (Good discussion of spider sociality.)

External links

* [http://cas.bellarmine.edu/tietjen/Ethology/FixedPhoto.htm Pictures of some Species]