Kingdom Animalia Infraorder Mygalomorphae Higher classification Tarantula Order Spider | Subphylum Chelicerata Phylum Arthropoda Rank Subfamily | |
Similar Tarantula, Selenogyrinae, Stromatopelminae, Ischnocolinae, Harpactirinae | ||
The Eumenophorinae is a subfamily of tarantula spiders (family Theraphosidae). They are known from thirteen genera distributed across Africa, southwestern countries in Saudi Arabia, Madagascar and the associated islands.
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Distribution
At about 158-160 Mya, Gondwana split up and the Indo-Madagascan plate drifted away from the rest of the super-continent. At around 84-86 million years ago, India split from Madagascar and drifted into Eurasia (66-55 mya), to its current position. Therefore all fauna in Gondwana (such as the Eumenophorinae) would be distributed on all three land masses.
Characteristics
The Eumenophorinae have stridulatory spike setae on the coxae of all legs, and a "comb" of stiffened setae on the palpal femur. In 2005 Richard Gallon described the monotypic genus Mascaraneus, which lacks the stridulatory spike setae.