Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 17, 2026

Pimoidae

Pimoidae is a small family of araneomorph spiders first described by Jörg Wunderlich in 1986. As re-circumscribed in 2021, it is monophyletic, and contained around 90 species in two genera. It is closely related to the Linyphiidae, and is sometimes treated as synonymous with that family.

Last revised
Jun 17, 2026
Read time
≈ 1 min
Length
299 w
Citations
9
Source
Wikipedia ↗
Pimoidae
Temporal range:
Pimoa altioculata in Seattle, USA
male Pimoa rupicola in France
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Chelicerata
Class: Arachnida
Order: Araneae
Infraorder: Araneomorphae
Family: Pimoidae
Wunderlich, 1986
Diversity
2 genera, 87 species
blue: reported countries (WSC)
green: observation hotspots (iNaturalist)

Pimoidae is a small family of araneomorph spiders first described by Jörg Wunderlich in 1986.1 As re-circumscribed in 2021, it is monophyletic,2 and contained around 90 species in two genera.3 It is closely related to the Linyphiidae,24 and is sometimes treated as synonymous with that family.5

The species Pimoa cthulhu, described by Gustavo Hormiga in 1994, is named for Howard Phillips Lovecraft's mythological deity Cthulhu.4

Distribution

The ancestors of the family are thought to have been widely distributed across the Palearctic, Nearctic and Sino-Japanese regions, but species now have a more fragmented distribution.2

Genera

As of January 2026, this family includes two genera and 87 species:6

References

References

  1. Wunderlich, J. (1986). Spinnenfauna gestern und heute: Fossile Spinnen in Bernstein und ihre heute lebenden Verwandten.
  2. Hormiga, Gustavo; Kulkarni, Siddharth; da Silva Moreira, Thiago & Dimitrov, Dimitar (2021). "Molecular phylogeny of pimoid spiders and the limits of Linyphiidae, with a reassessment of male palpal homologies (Araneae, Pimoidae)". Zootaxa. 5026 (1): 71–101. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.5026.1.3. PMID 34810940. S2CID 238681925.
  3. "Families". World Spider Catalog. Natural History Museum Bern. Retrieved 2026-01-23.
  4. Hormiga, Gustavo (1994). "A Revision and Cladistic Analysis of the Spider Family Pimoidae (Araneoidea: Araneae)". Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology. 549: 533–542.
  5. Murphy, J. A.; Roberts, M. J. (2015). Spider families of the world and their spinnerets. British Arachnological Society. ISBN 978-0950009377.
  6. "Family Pimoidae Wunderlich, 1986". World Spider Catalog. doi:10.24436/2. Retrieved 2026-01-17.
External links