Talk:Spider taxonomy

cleanup
i will try to rewrite this page in the near future. looks like the page creator cluttered the page with galleries from commons, and after a few days lost interest. the focus should be in giving an insight into spider features that are of taxonomic interest. --Sarefo 01:46, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

In trying to eliminate some duplications in the spider article I moved a list here. In the absence of other information, pictures can be helpful. I still think it would be useful to keep a representative picture or perhaps a small selection for each genus.

The information on features of taxonomic interest would be welcome. P0M 03:34, 7 July 2006 (UTC)


 * There are almost 4,000 genera. I don't think providing images for most of them on one page (or a random selection thereof) would be very useful. maybe we can come up with something useful for this page in the near future; atm i'm working on WPSpiders to get the scaffolding up :) --Sarefo 00:22, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Table (moved from Spider families)
if you want to edit the table, it's best to use a local editor that is able to display monospace fonts (eg. vi). the table is aligned for easier manipulation. --Sarefo 04:51, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup & merge done
Cleanup done first, tag removed. Contents of Spider families moved into and merged with this article. Regards, AshLin 11:03, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Aranae families and Spider families now redirect to this article. AshLin 13:11, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Redirected article
As per the AfD, the article identifying spiders was redirected to this page. If editors here want to see if there is content that could be merged, see this older version of the article. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:13, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Order versus infraorder
Most of wikipedia seems to divide the order Araneae order into three sub orders. In a few places, including this article, wikipedia divides Araneae into two suborders and then one of those suborders is divided into two infraorders. It seems like this might be an appropriate place to discuss the two different ideas about spider taxonomy and why one should have priority over the other. Without knowing anything about the underlying justification it seems like the infraorder thing adds complexity without much purpose, but this opinion could change if I actually knew something. --Davefoc (talk) 23:51, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Argyronetidae vs. Cybinidae - either way, the Water or Diving Bell spider's family is not in this list!
I just got the Smithsonian Handbook of Insects, spiders and other terrestrial arthropods and decided to find if all of the families listed in that book were on this list. Very quickly, I found one that was missing. I'm not sure to say which family it is because apparently there is some discussion in the scientific community about how to classify it. Anyway, a species and a sub-species are both listed, one with each classification. Either way, one or both names should be in this list:

--GlenPeterson (talk) 22:17, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Argyroneta aquatica
 * A. a. japonica
 * I see the family Cybaeidae listed...Which is the correct spelling.(See superfamily Dictynoidea on the list.) -- Arachnowhat (talk) 23:53, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Mygalomorph image...
Caption from image: "Digitally enhanced image of a Sphodros rufipes that shows the nearly perfectly vertical orientation of the chelicerae, a prime characteristic of the Mygalomorphae."

1) Lousy image ("digitally defaced"?) 2) Anyone not already familiar with the distinction being made will not be able to find the "chelicerae". 3) The statement itself is simply wrong (see Wikipedia's own article on the Mygalomorphae).

-K. Pfeiffer —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.103.117.5 (talk) 13:37, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Table of families
The Table of families section seems problematic to me. My inclination is to categorize the families only under those large clades which are supported in multiple recent (say 2005 onwards) publications. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:11, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) It's based on a web page that is now obsolete; Joel Hallan's new website is now at http://bug.tamu.edu/Biocat/. Although the old page is still available (at a different URL), it's dated 2005 – but seems to be based on even older reliable sources. The new page allows searches for taxa, but does not seem to deal with spiders: searching for "Opiliones" produces child taxa, but searching for "Araneae" does not. So at present there's no updated equivalent to the page used to produce the table.
 * 2) Family assignments have changed because of new phylogenetic evidence. As one example, Hormiga & Griswold (2014) review studies from 2000 onwards that have circumscribed Palpimanoidea differently; four families are now placed in Araneioidea (which the table shows) and families formerly in the Archaeoidea should be in the Palpimanoidea (which the table does not show).
 * 3) More problematically, it's not clear that the superfamily system is now used in any systematic way. All recent research I've found discusses spiders in terms of named clades (e.g. the "RTA clade" is an important component of the Entelegynae) rather than formal ranks, so there may not be any up-to-date assignments of families to superfamilies.

For reference: Peter coxhead (talk) 18:58, 26 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Families in the table no longer recognized in the World Spider Catalog as of 2015-09-26: Zoridae
 * Families in the WSC as of 2015-09-26 but not in the table: Euctenizidae, Eutichuridae, Penestomidae, Phrurolithidae, Sinopimoidae, Trachelidae.
 * ✅ I have now replaced the table with one containing the latest set of families. As superfamilies don't appear in recent reliable sources, I've just used an alphabetic order of families within each of the three main groups. I've also corrected and updated a few of the "examples". Peter coxhead (talk) 12:37, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 06:42, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Mismeasure of Mesothelae
In the overview of phylogeny section it is stated that "The Mesothelae, with only 9 species, make up an insignificant proportion of the total". This is factually incorrect as Mesothelae contains 8 genera with 100 species. This is far from a "insignificant portion". This sectipn os out of date and should be updated.TheDarkMaster2 (talk) 01:01, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Well spotted – these figures were very out of date. To one decimal place, Mesothelae make up 0.3%, Mygalomorphae 6.5% and Araneomorphae 93.3% in terms of the number of species according to the World Spider Catalog right now. I've updated the text (the table also needs updating, I think).
 * ✅ The table has been updated (there was a new family, Myrmecicultoridae, as well as changed counts). Peter coxhead (talk) 11:05, 1 November 2020 (UTC)