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Wandering Spiders
Ctenidae
Wandering spiders (Ctenidae) are a family of spiders that includes the Brazilian wandering spiders. These spiders have a distinctive longitudinal groove on the top-rear of their oval carapace similar to those of the Amaurobiidae.
They are highly defensive and venomous nocturnal hunters. Wandering spiders are known to hunt large prey, for example hylid species Dendropsophus branneri. Despite their notoriety for being dangerous, only a few members of Phoneutria have venom known to be hazardous to humans, but the venoms of this family are poorly known, so all larger ctenids should be treated with caution.
35 branches of this family, most-observed first
Brazilian Wandering Spiders
genusPhoneutria
Cteninae
subfamilyCteninae
Acanthocteninae
subfamilyAcanthocteninae
Kiekie
genusKiekie
Enoplocteninae
subfamilyEnoplocteninae
Bowie
genusBowie
Asthenoctenus
genusAsthenoctenus
Centroctenus
genusCentroctenus
Isoctenus
genusIsoctenus
Guasuctenus
genusGuasuctenus
Spinoctenus
genusSpinoctenus
Acantheis
genusAcantheis
Afroneutria
genusAfroneutria
Califorctenus
genusCaliforctenus
Africactenus
genusAfricactenus
Calocteninae
subfamilyCalocteninae
Macroctenus
genusMacroctenus
Piloctenus
genusPiloctenus
Amicactenus
genusAmicactenus
Sinoctenus
genusSinoctenus
Ohvida
genusOhvida
Trogloctenus
genusTrogloctenus
Celaetycheus
genusCelaetycheus
Caloctenus
genusCaloctenus
Ciba
genusCiba
Montescueia
genusMontescueia
Thoriosa
genusThoriosa
Tuticanus
genusTuticanus
Wiedenmeyeria
genusWiedenmeyeria
Perictenus
genusPerictenus
Nimbanahita
genusNimbanahita
Bulboctenus
genusBulboctenus
Eldivo
genusEldivo
Trujillina
genusTrujillina
Petaloctenus
genusPetaloctenus
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
—
geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Ctenidae in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 53389.