As the name suggests, these spiders are very small, from about .5mm up to 1.5mm. The Micropholcommatids of Australia, Lord Howe Island, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Chile were revised in 2010 by Mike Rix and Mark Harvey. They found 18 genera, 58 species and a close relationship between this family, Anapidae and Symphytognathidae. Micropholcommatids usually live in high-humidity microhabitats, where they build small, horizontal sheet-webs or tangle-webs. They are most common in the cool-temperate rainforests of south-eastern Australia and New Zealand.
Micropholcomma sp. near M. longissimum
From the Lamington National Park IBISCA project (Investigating the Biodiversity of Soil and Canopy Arthropods)
Photo: Barbara Baehr
References
- Rix & Harvey, 2010 - Rix MG, Harvey MS (2010) The spider family Micropholcommatidae (Arachnida, Araneae, Araneoidea): a relimitation and revision at the generic level. ZooKeys 36: 1-321