Family CTENIDAE Keyserling, 1887

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Introduction

The Australian Ctenidae are among the rarer of the cursorial spiders. Larger spiders of the 'dump' genus Ctenus resemble stocky huntsmen spiders and typically are tropical; smaller genera like mesophyllic Anahita and the grass-loving Leptoctenus are found along the east coast. The recently described speciose genus Amauropelma is found only in the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area of north Queensland.

An undescribed species is the only representative of the genus Bowie Jäger, 2022 that is known from northern Queensland (Jäger 2022).

Diagnosis

Ctenidae are recognised by having only 2 claws, true claw tufts are present, the cribellum is absent in Australian genera, the eyes of the back row are clearly larger than those of the front and from above are in 3 rows with the anterior lateral eyes alone in the first, the anterior lateral eyes are high and lie between the posterior median and posterior lateral eyes which alone may form two rows, the typical condition is 2-4-2 or 2-6, scopula are present on tarsi and metatarsi of legs 1 and 2, males lack a basal fracture on the pedal tibiae, the retrocoxal hymen is present on coxa 1, ventral spines on tibiae and metatarsi 1 and 2 are strong and on raised bases.

General References

Hazzi, N.A. & Hormiga, G. 2023. Molecular phylogeny of the tropical wandering spiders (Araneae, Ctenidae) and the evolution of eye conformation in the RTA clade. Cladistics 39: 18-42

Jäger, P. 2022. Bowie gen. nov., a diverse lineage of ground-dwelling spiders occurring from the Himalayas to Papua New Guinea and northern Australia (Araneae: Ctenidae: Cteninae). Zootaxa 5170: 1-200 [189]

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