Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 21, 2026

Ordgarius

Ordgarius is a genus of orb-weaver spiders first described by Eugen von Keyserling in 1886. Adult females of the genus are bolas spiders, capturing their prey with one or more sticky drops at the end of a single line of silk rather than in a web. Males and juvenile females capture their prey directly with their legs.

Last revised
Jun 21, 2026
Read time
≈ 1 min
Length
301 w
Citations
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Source
Wikipedia ↗
Ordgarius
Female Ordgarius sexspinosus
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Chelicerata
Class: Arachnida
Order: Araneae
Infraorder: Araneomorphae
Family: Araneidae
Subfamily: Cyrtarachninae s.l.
Genus: Ordgarius
Keyserling, 18861
Type species
O. monstrosus
Keyserling, 1886
Species

12, see text

Synonyms1
  • Dicrostichus Simon, 18952
  • Euglyptila Simon, 19093
  • Notocentria Thorell, 1894

Ordgarius is a genus of orb-weaver spiders first described by Eugen von Keyserling in 1886.4 Adult females of the genus are bolas spiders, capturing their prey with one or more sticky drops at the end of a single line of silk rather than in a web. Males and juvenile females capture their prey directly with their legs.5

Species

As of April 2019 it contains twelve species:1

  • Ordgarius acanthonotus (Simon, 1909) – Vietnam
  • Ordgarius bicolor Pocock, 1899 – Papua New Guinea (New Britain)
  • Ordgarius clypeatus Simon, 1897 – Indonesia (Ambon)
  • Ordgarius ephippiatus Thorell, 1898 – Myanmar
  • Ordgarius furcatus (O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1877) – Australia (New South Wales)
    • Ordgarius f. distinctus (Rainbow, 1900) – Australia (New South Wales)
  • Ordgarius hexaspinus Saha & Raychaudhuri, 2004 – India
  • Ordgarius hobsoni (O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1877) – India, Sri Lanka, China, Japan
  • Ordgarius magnificus (Rainbow, 1897) – Australia (Queensland, New South Wales)
  • Ordgarius monstrosus Keyserling, 1886 – Australia (Queensland)
  • Ordgarius pustulosus Thorell, 1897 – Indonesia (Java)
  • Ordgarius sexspinosus (Thorell, 1894) – India to Japan, Indonesia
References

References

  1. "Gen. Ordgarius Keyserling, 1886". World Spider Catalog Version 20.0. Natural History Museum Bern. 2019. doi:10.24436/2. Retrieved 2019-05-14.
  2. Davies, V. T. (1988). "An illustrated guide to the genera of orb-weaving spiders in Australia". Memoirs of the Queensland Museum. 25: 316.
  3. Levi, H. W. (2003). "The bolas spiders of the genus Mastophora (Araneae: Araneidae)". Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. 157: 376.
  4. Keyserling, E. (1886). Die Arachniden Australiens.
  5. Levi, H.W. (2003). "The bolas spiders of the genus Mastophora (Araneae: Araneidae)". Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. 157: 309–382.