Caerostris
Genus of spiders
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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]
| 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, 1868[1] |
| Species | |
|
20, see text | |
| Synonyms[1] | |
|
Trichocharis Simon, 1895[2] | |
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.[1][4] 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.[3][1] 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
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As of September 2025[update], 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
