Mesothelae

Mesothelae
Temporal range: Pennsylvanian–Present
Heptathela higoensis
Heptathela higoensis
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Chelicerata
Class: Arachnida
Order: Araneae
Suborder: Mesothelae
Pocock, 1892[1]
Subdivisions

The Mesothelae are a suborder of spiders (order Araneae). As of April 2024, two extant families were accepted by the World Spider Catalog, Liphistiidae and Heptathelidae. Alternatively, the Heptathelidae can be treated as a subfamily of a more broadly circumscribed Liphistiidae. There are also a number of extinct families.

This suborder is thought to form the sister group to all other living spiders, and to retain ancestral characters, such as a segmented abdomen with spinnerets in the middle and two pairs of book lungs. Extant members of the Mesothelae are medium to large spiders with eight eyes grouped on a tubercle. They are found only in China, Japan, and southeast Asia.[2] The oldest known Mesothelae spiders are from the Carboniferous, over 300 million years ago.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Haup04 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference SongZhuChen99 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).