Caerostris
Caerostris, sometimes called bark spiders, is a genus of orb-weaver spiders first described by Tamerlan Thorell in 1868. Most species are found in south eastern Africa and neighboring Madagascar.
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. Up to 2009, only 11 species had been described. A further species, C. darwini, was described in 2010, and six more species in 2015. Two of the "species", C. sexcuspidata and C. sumatrana, will probably need to be divided further to produce genetically uniform species.
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.
Species
, this genus includes twenty species:Caerostris almae Gregorič, 2015 – MadagascarCaerostris bankana Strand, 1915 – MadagascarCaerostris bojani Gregorič, 2015 – MadagascarCaerostris corticosa Pocock, 1902 – Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, EswatiniCaerostris cowani Butler, 1882 – MadagascarCaerostris darwini Kuntner & Agnarsson, 2010 – MadagascarCaerostris ecclesiigera Butler, 1882 – MadagascarCaerostris extrusa Butler, 1882 – MadagascarCaerostris hirsuta – MadagascarCaerostris indica Strand, 1915 – MyanmarCaerostris kuntneri Gregorič & Yu, 2025 – MadagascarCaerostris linnaeus Gregorič, 2015 – MozambiqueCaerostris mayottensis Grasshoff, 1984 – Comoros, MayotteCaerostris mitralis – Tanzania, DR Congo, Mozambique, Madagascar Caerostris pero Gregorič, 2015 – MadagascarCaerostris sexcuspidata – Cameroon, Ethiopia, South Africa, Seychelles, Comoros, MadagascarCaerostris sumatrana Strand, 1915 – India, China, Laos, Malaysia, Borneo, Indonesia Caerostris tinamaze Gregorič, 2015 – South AfricaCaerostris vicina – Sub-Saharan AfricaCaerostris wallacei Gregorič, Blackledge, Agnarsson & Kuntner, 2015 – Madagascar