| Caerostris | |
|---|---|
| |
| C. sexcuspidata in web | |
| |
| C. corticosa | |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Subphylum: | Chelicerata |
| Class: | Arachnida |
| Order: | Araneae |
| Infraorder: | Araneomorphae |
| Family: | Araneidae |
| Genus: | Caerostris Thorell, 18681 |
| Species | |
|
20, see text | |
| Synonyms1 | |
|
Trichocharis Simon, 18952 | |
Caerostris, sometimes called bark spiders,3 is a genus of orb-weaver spiders first described by Tamerlan Thorell in 1868.4 Most species are found in south eastern Africa and neighboring Madagascar.1
Taxonomy
The genus Caerostris was erected in 1868 by Tamerlan Thorell with the type species being Epeira mitralis Vinson, 1863, which Thorell transferred to Caerostris mitralis.14 Up to 2009, only 11 species had been described. A further species, C. darwini, was described in 2010,5 and six more species in 2015.31 Two of the "species", C. sexcuspidata and C. sumatrana, will probably need to be divided further to produce genetically uniform species.3
A molecular phylogenetic study of 12 of the species of Caerostris produced the phylogenetic tree shown below, showing that the African and Madagascan species form a monophyletic group.3
|
African and Madagascan species |
Behavior
-
Web of C. darwini
Species
-
C. sexcuspidata on bark -
C. sexcuspidata -
C. extrusa -
Caerostris sp. -
C. vicina
As of September 2025, this genus includes twenty species:1
- Caerostris almae Gregorič, 2015 – Madagascar
- Caerostris bankana Strand, 1915 – Madagascar
- Caerostris bojani Gregorič, 2015 – Madagascar
- Caerostris corticosa Pocock, 1902 – Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Eswatini
- Caerostris cowani Butler, 1882 – Madagascar
- Caerostris darwini Kuntner & Agnarsson, 2010 – Madagascar
- Caerostris ecclesiigera Butler, 1882 – Madagascar
- Caerostris extrusa Butler, 1882 – Madagascar
- Caerostris hirsuta (Simon, 1895) – Madagascar
- Caerostris indica Strand, 1915 – Myanmar
- Caerostris kuntneri Gregorič & Yu, 2025 – Madagascar
- Caerostris linnaeus Gregorič, 2015 – Mozambique
- Caerostris mayottensis Grasshoff, 1984 – Comoros, Mayotte
- Caerostris mitralis (Vinson, 1863) – Tanzania, DR Congo, Mozambique, Madagascar (type species)
- Caerostris pero Gregorič, 2015 – Madagascar
- Caerostris sexcuspidata (Fabricius, 1793) – Cameroon, Ethiopia, South Africa, Seychelles, Comoros, Madagascar
- Caerostris sumatrana Strand, 1915 – India, China, Laos, Malaysia, Borneo, Indonesia (Sumatra, Java)
- Caerostris tinamaze Gregorič, 2015 – South Africa
- Caerostris vicina (Blackwall, 1866) – Sub-Saharan Africa
- Caerostris wallacei Gregorič, Blackledge, Agnarsson & Kuntner, 2015 – Madagascar
References
References
- "Genus Caerostris". World Spider Catalog. doi:10.24436/2. Retrieved 26 September 2025.
- Grasshoff, M. (1984). "Die Radnetzspinnen-Gattung Caerostris (Arachnida: Araneae)". Revue Zoologique Africaine. 98 (4): 725–765. OCLC 717108186. NAID 10022018721.
- Gregorič, Matjaž; Blackledge, Todd A.; Agnarsson, Ingi; Kuntner, Matjaž (2015). "A molecular phylogeny of bark spiders reveals new species from Africa and Madagascar (Araneae: Araneidae: Caerostris)". Journal of Arachnology. 43 (3): 293–312. doi:10.1636/0161-8202-43.3.293. S2CID 53953991.
- Thorell, T. (1868), "Araneae. Species novae minusve cognitae", in Virgin, C.A. (ed.), Kongliga Svenska Fregatten Eugenies Resa omkring Jorden (in Latin), Uppsala, pp. 1–34
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Kuntner, Matjaž; Agnarsson, Ingi (2010). "Web gigantism in Darwin's bark spider, a new species from Madagascar (Araneidae: Caerostris)". The Journal of Arachnology. 38 (2): 346–356. doi:10.1636/B09-113.1. S2CID 54079094.