Genus Trichonephila - Golden Orb-weavers

Classification · Synonyms and other taxonomic changes · Explanation of Names · Numbers · Range · Works Cited

Golden-silk spiders emerged - Trichonephila clavipes

Golden Silk Spider - Trichonephila clavipes

Nephila clavipes - Trichonephila clavipes - female

Joro Spider (Nephila clavata) - Trichonephila clavata - female

Spider ID with not much to go on — I'm sorry! - Trichonephila clavipes

Golden Silk Orbweaver - Trichonephila clavipes

Nephila clavipes - Trichonephila clavipes

Classification

Kingdom Animalia (Animals)

Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)

Subphylum Chelicerata (Chelicerates)

Class Arachnida (Arachnids)

Order Araneae (Spiders)

Infraorder Araneomorphae (True Spiders)

No Taxon (Entelegynae)

Family Araneidae (Orb Weavers)

Genus Trichonephila (Golden Orb-weavers)

Synonyms and other taxonomic changes

Species in our range moved to new genus Trichonephila from Nephila via "Kuntner et al., 2019".(1) Trichonephila Dahl, 1911 transferred to Nephilidae via Kuntner et al., 2023(2). Trichonephila Dahl, 1911 transferred to Araneidae via Hormiga et al., 2023(3).

Explanation of Names

Dahl, 1911

Numbers

Two species in our range:

T. clavipes (Golden Silk Orbweaver)

T. clavata (Joro Spider)

Range

T. clavipes - Predominantly southeastern US. Florida, Gulf States, north to North Carolina, south to Central and South America as far as Argentina.

T. clavata - northeast GA(4)

Works Cited

1.	Golden orbweavers ignore biological rules: phylogenomic and comparative analyses unravel a complex evolution of sexual size dimo Kuntner, M., Hamilton, C. A., Cheng, R.-C., Gregorič, M., Lupse, N., Lokovsek, T., Lemmon, E. M., Lemmon, A. R., Agnarsson, I.,. 2019. Systematic Biology 68(4): 555-572.

2.	Increasing information content and diagnosability in family-level classifications. Kuntner, M., Čandek, K., Gregorič, M., Turk, E., Hamilton, C. A., Chamberland, L., Starrett, J., Cheng, R. C., Coddington, J. . 2023. Systematic Biology.

3.	Genitalic morphology and phylogenomic placement of the Australian spider Paraplectanoides crassipes Keyserling, 1886 (Araneae, A Hormiga, G., Kulkarni, S., Arnedo, M. A., Dimitrov, D., Giribet, G., Kallal, R. J. & Scharff, N. 2023. Invertebrate Systematics 37(12): 797-818.

4.	Nephila clavata L Koch, the Joro Spider of East Asia, newly recorded from North America (Araneae: Nephilidae) E. Richard Hoebeke, Wesley Huffmaster, Byron J. Freeman. 2015. PeerJ.

Contributed by Troy Bartlett on 16 February, 2004 - 1:20pm
Additional contributions by Laura P., edanko, Nathaniel Green
Last updated 8 February, 2024 - 8:43am

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