Santa Cruz Island Reserve, California-Arachnid

The crevice weaver spiders (super-family Filistatoidea, family Filistatidae) contain primitive cribellate spiders. They are haplogyne weavers of funnel or tube webs. The family contains 17 genera and more than hundred described species worldwide. One of the most abundant members of this family in the Americas is the Southern house spider (Kukulcania hibernalis). Named after the fierce Meso-American god Kukulkan, the females are large (up to nearly 20 mm) dark-colored spiders and males are light brown, smaller (about... less ↑

The spider family Oonopidae, commonly known as goblin spiders, includes over 2000 species in about 88 genera worldwide. The type genus of the family is Oonops Keyserling, 1835. They are generally tiny (1-3 mm) haplogyne araneomorph spiders. Some have hardened plates (scuta) on their abdomens. Oonopids usually have six eyes, the anterior median eyes having been lost. However, four-eyed (Opopaea viamao), two-eyed (e.g. Coxapopha, Diblemma) and even completely eyeless species (e.g. Cousinea, the cave-dwelling Blanioonops) are also... less ↑

The tube-dwelling spiders (family Segestriidae) consist of two large and widespread genera (Segestria and Ariadna) and one monotypic genus (Gippsicola from Australia). The family is easily recognized because its members have six eyes (most spiders have eight) arranged in a semicircle and have the first three pairs of legs arranged forward (most spiders have only the first two pairs so arranged.) The leg structure appears to be an adaptation for living in silken tubes, which unlike... less ↑