Theridiidae
A diverse family of spiders common in human dwellings worldwide.
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They are known as tangle-web spiders, cobweb spiders, and comb-footed spiders.[1] Carl Jakob Sundevall originally described the araneomorph spider family Theridiidae in 1833.[1] Roughly 3,000 species distributed across 128 genera belong to this family, and it represents the arthropod group most frequently encountered inside human homes globally.[1]
Scientific classification
- KingdomAnimalia
- PhylumArthropoda
- SubphylumChelicerata
- ClassArachnida
- OrderAraneae
- InfraorderAraneomorphae
- FamilyTheridiidae
Named by Sundevall, 1833
Sources: Wikipedia taxobox: Theridiidae (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Quick Facts
- Diversity
- 138 genera, 2,619 species
Facts from the source article.
Biology and range
Female theridiid spiders possess a genital plate (entelegyne condition) and produce sticky capture silk rather than woolly silk (ecribellate condition).[2] Although the family exhibits a wide variety of web architectures, tangle space webs are a common construction.[3] Elastic, sticky silk trap lines extending to the ground surface are used by many species to capture ants and other insects that live on the soil.[3] Observations indicate that webs are maintained over long durations through expansion and repair, with no consistent schedule for web replacement.[4]
Theridion, containing over 600 species, is the largest genus in the family, though it is not a monophyletic group.[5]
What the specialist sources record
GBIF Backbone Taxonomy accepts Theridiidae as a family within the order Araneae.[6] GBIF holds 584,656 occurrence records for this taxon as of 17 October 2026.[6]
References
- Wikipedia, "Theridiidae" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Sundevall, "Conspectus Arachnidum", 1833; "Family Theridiidae Sundevall, 1833", World Spider Catalog; Leong, "The Habitats Humans Provide: Factors affecting the diversity and composition of arthropods in houses", Scientific Reports, 2017, p. 15347 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Theridiidae" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Agnarsson, "A revision of the New World eximius lineage of Anelosimus (Araneae, Theridiidae) and a phylogenetic analysis using worldwide exemplars", Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2006, p. 453–593 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Theridiidae" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Benjamin, "Webs of theridiid spiders: construction, structure and evolution", Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2003, p. 293–305 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Theridiidae" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Benjamin, "Untangling the tangle-web: web building behaviour of the comb-footed spider Steatoda triangulosa and comments on phylogenetic implications (Araneae: Theridiidae)", Journal of Insect Behavior, 2002, p. 791–809 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Theridiidae" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Family Theridiidae Sundevall, 1833", World Spider Catalog (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- GBIF Backbone Taxonomy and occurrence index, Theridiidae (taxon key 9583). CC BY 4.0 (backbone); counts are facts. gbif.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Theridiidae (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Theridiidae (CC BY-SA 4.0).
- Word definitions: the , each quoted from its Wikipedia article.
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