Specimen image via iDigBio · BY-NC-ND
OverviewAI-generated
Sparassidae is a family of arachnids within the order Araneae, class Arachnida, phylum Arthropoda, and kingdom Animalia. The group is commonly referred to by names including Huntsman spider, Riesenkrabbenspinnen, Esparàssid, and Jahtihämähäkit. It is classified as a taxon at the family rank.
Records for this family are held by institutions such as MCZ, with documented occurrences in Thailand, Vanuatu, Guyana, and Mexico. The family has 102,552 recorded occurrences and 1,826 records, including 26 media items. The taxon is referenced by 506 other encyclopedia articles.
Synthesized by Vinony from 20 facts across 5 sources: Wikidata, GBIF, Gbif Occ, iDigBio, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Species
FAMILY
- KingdomAnimalia
- PhylumArthropoda
- ClassArachnida
- OrderAraneae
- FamilySparassidae
via GBIF
Museum specimens
- Specimen records
- 1,826
- With media
- 26
- Family
- Sparassidae
- Collections
- MCZ
- Recorded in
- Thailand, Vanuatu, Guyana, Mexico
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- taxon
- Image
- Huntsman spider white bg03.jpg
Show 5 more facts
- taxon rank
- family
- Commons category
- Sparassidae
- taxon name
- Sparassidae
- topic's main category
- Category:Sparassidae
- taxon common name
- jegeredderkopper
Sources (1)
via Wikidata · CC0
~14 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Huntsman spiders, members of the family Sparassidae (formerly Heteropodidae), catch their prey by hunting rather than in webs. They are also called giant crab spiders because of their size and appearance. Larger species sometimes are referred to as wood spiders, because of their preference for woody places (forests, mine shafts, woodpiles, and wooden shacks). In southern Africa, the species of the genus Palystes are known as rain spiders or lizard-eating spiders. They are commonly confused with baboon spiders from the Mygalomorphae infraorder, which are not closely related.
More than a thousand Sparassidae species occur in most warm, temperate to tropical regions of the world, including much of Australia, Africa, Asia, the Mediterranean Basin, and the Americas.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Sparassidae” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.