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Spiders
Spiders belong to the class Arachnidia and Order Araneae. They are air-breathing arthropods with eight legs. An arthropod is an invertebrate with an exoskeleton, a body which is segmented and has jointed appendages. Arthropods include insects, arachnids and crustaceans.
Spiders are present on every continent except Antarctica.
In 2008 there were thought to be around 40,000 species of spiders. This includes over 100 families of spiders. Spiders are classified in the suborders Mesothelae and Liphistiidae, with the latter classification split into two infraorders - Opisthothelae and Mygalomorphae.
Suborder Mesothelae - Family Liphistiidae
There are 87 species of spiders in this sub-order of the Liphistiidae.
 Ryuthela tanikawai Author: Akio Tanikawa Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 Generic |
Ryuthela secundaria female (member of the Liphistiidae) Author: Akio Tanikawa Source website Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 Generic |
Suborder Opisthothelae
There are 87 species of spiders in this sub-order of the Liphistiidae.
infra-order Mygalomorphae
- Family Liphistiidae. There are 2,600 species of spiders in this grouping. These include tarantulas, trapdoor spiders and the Australasian funnel-web spiders.
 tarantula Author: Ltshears image in public domain |
 Victorian Funnelweb Spider User: Fir0002 GNU Free Documentation License 1.2 |
infra-order Araneomorphae
- Family Araneomorphae. There are 37,000 species of spiders in this grouping.
 Holoplatys semiplanata jumping spider User: Fir0002 GNU Free Documentation License 1.2 |
 Tarantula Brachypelma smithi Author: Acrocynus GNU Free Documentation License |