Synotaxus

Synotaxus; Temporal range: Palaeogene– Present PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Subphylum:	Chelicerata
Class:	Arachnida
Order:	Araneae
Infraorder:	Araneomorphae
Family:	Synotaxidae
Genus:	Synotaxus; Simon, 1895
Type species
	S. turbinatus; Simon, 1895
Species
	11, see text

Synotaxus is a genus of araneomorph spiders in the family Synotaxidae that was first described by Eugène Louis Simon in 1895.^[2] Originally placed with the tangle web spiders, it was moved to the family Synotaxidae in 2017.^[3]^[4]

Description

Spiders in this genus have a long, green abdomen, which extends to varying degrees beyond the spinnerets. The carapace is wide and flat, and they have long, delicate legs with the first being the longest.^[3]^[5] The legs and body are both covered in long, fine setae.

The posterior lateral spinnerets bear enlarged aggregate gland spigots, and the male pedipalp has a stout patellar spur.^[5] The palpal femur, patella and tibia bear strong, often greatly enlarged, macrosetae.^[3]

Species

As of September 2019^[update] it contains eleven species, found in South America, Panama, Costa Rica, and on Trinidad:^[1]

Synotaxus bonaldoi Santos & Rheims, 2005 – Brazil
Synotaxus brescoviti Santos & Rheims, 2005 – Brazil
Synotaxus ecuadorensis Exline, 1950 – Costa Rica to Ecuador
Synotaxus itabaiana Santos & Rheims, 2005 – Brazil
Synotaxus jaraguari Souza, Brescovit & Araujo, 2017 – Brazil
Synotaxus leticia Exline & Levi, 1965 – Colombia
Synotaxus longicaudatus (Keyserling, 1891) – Brazil
Synotaxus monoceros (Caporiacco, 1947) – Trinidad, Guyana, Brazil
Synotaxus siolii Santos & Rheims, 2005 – Brazil
Synotaxus turbinatus Simon, 1895 (type) – Panama to Ecuador
Synotaxus waiwai Agnarsson, 2003 – Guyana, Brazil, Paraguay

Habitat and Distribution

Spiders in this genus are found in the understory of wet forests in South America, where they construct their webs between the leaves of trees or bushes, well above the forest floor.^[5]

References

^ ^a ^b "Gen. Synotaxus Simon, 1895". World Spider Catalog Version 20.0. Natural History Museum Bern. 2019. doi:10.24436/2. Retrieved 2019-10-13.
^ Simon, E. (1895). "Etudes arachnologiques. 26e. XLI. Descriptions d'espèces et de genres nouveaux de l'ordre des Araneae". Annales de la Société Entomologique de France. 64: 131–160.
^ ^a ^b ^c Forster, R. R.; Platnick, N. I.; Coddington, J. (1990). "A proposal and review of the spider family Synotaxidae (Araneae, Araneoidea), with notes on theridiid interrelationships". Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History. 193: 96.
^ Dimitrov, D.; Benavides, L. R.; Arnedo, M. A.; Giribet, G.; Griswold, C. E.; Scharff, N.; Hormiga, G. (2017). "Rounding up the usual suspects: a standard target-gene approach for resolving the interfamilial phylogenetic relationships of ecribellate orb-weaving spiders with a new family-rank classification (Araneae, Araneoidea)". Cladistics. 33 (3): 221–250. doi:10.1111/cla.12165. PMID 34715728. S2CID 34962403.
^ ^a ^b ^c Platnick, Norman (2020). Spiders of the World: A Natural History. London: Ivy Press, an imprint of The Quarto Group. p. 148. ISBN 9781782407508.