Oh my goodness! Unless you are a Tree of Life developer, you really shouldn't be here. This page is part of our beta test site, where we develop new features for the ToL, often messing up a thing or two in the process. Please visit the official version of this page, which is available here.
Under Construction

New World clade

Dimitar Dimitrov
Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
taxon links Phylogenetic position of group is uncertainPhylogenetic position of group is uncertainPhylogenetic position of group is uncertain[down<--]Pholcidae Interpreting the tree
close box

This tree diagram shows the relationships between several groups of organisms.

The root of the current tree connects the organisms featured in this tree to their containing group and the rest of the Tree of Life. The basal branching point in the tree represents the ancestor of the other groups in the tree. This ancestor diversified over time into several descendent subgroups, which are represented as internal nodes and terminal taxa to the right.

example of a tree diagram

You can click on the root to travel down the Tree of Life all the way to the root of all Life, and you can click on the names of descendent subgroups to travel up the Tree of Life all the way to individual species.

For more information on ToL tree formatting, please see Interpreting the Tree or Classification. To learn more about phylogenetic trees, please visit our Phylogenetic Biology pages.

close box
Tree from Huber (2000) modified after the results of Bruvo-Madaric et al. (2005)
Containing group: Pholcidae

Characteristics

The New World clade includes a quite heterogeneous group of pholcid genera; all of them, as the name of the clade indicates, are known from the New World. Spiders in this group also share some morphological synapomorphies such as the exposed tarsal organ, male palpal coxa with a retrolateral apophysis, large distance between the posterior median and the anterior lateral eyes, male gonopore without epiandrous spigots and anterior lateral spigots with only one piriform gland each.

Discussion of Phylogenetic Relationships

The exact limits of this group are still unclear. A fairly large sample of New World genera was included in two phylogenetic studies (Huber, 2000; Bruvo-Madaric at al., 2005) but both failed to find an unambiguous solution for the exact limits of this group and the internal relationships of the included genera. Therefore, “New World clade” is used as an informal name referring to the group of New World pholcid genera found to be more closely related to each other than to the rest of the genera in the family. Addition of more data and expanding the taxon sample may help to answer these questions. Several genera which have some of the New World clade synapomorphies are listed here but their position was not tested in a phylogenetic analysis.

References

Bruvo-Madaric B., Huber B.A., Steinacher A., Pass G. 2005. Phylogeny of pholcid spiders (Araneae:Pholcidae): combined analysis using morphology and molecules. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 37: 661-673.

Huber B.A. 2000. New World pholcid spiders (Araneae: Pholcidae): a revision at generic level. Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. 254: 1–348.

Title Illustrations
Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
Scientific Name Modisimus mango
Location Haiti
Specimen Condition Live Specimen
Identified By Bernhard Huber
Sex Male
Life Cycle Stage Adult
Copyright © 2007 Bernhard A. Huber
About This Page

Dimitar Dimitrov
Zoological Museum, University of Copenhagen

Correspondence regarding this page should be directed to Dimitar Dimitrov at

Page: Tree of Life New World clade. Authored by Dimitar Dimitrov. The TEXT of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License - Version 3.0. Note that images and other media featured on this page are each governed by their own license, and they may or may not be available for reuse. Click on an image or a media link to access the media data window, which provides the relevant licensing information. For the general terms and conditions of ToL material reuse and redistribution, please see the Tree of Life Copyright Policies.

Citing this page:

Dimitrov, Dimitar. 2009. New World clade. Version 12 February 2009 (under construction). http://tolweb.org/New_World_clade/135149/2009.02.12 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/

edit this page
close box

This page is a Tree of Life Branch Page.

Each ToL branch page provides a synopsis of the characteristics of a group of organisms representing a branch of the Tree of Life. The major distinction between a branch and a leaf of the Tree of Life is that each branch can be further subdivided into descendent branches, that is, subgroups representing distinct genetic lineages.

For a more detailed explanation of the different ToL page types, have a look at the Structure of the Tree of Life page.

close box

New World clade

Page Content

articles & notes

collections

people

Explore Other Groups

random page

  go to the Tree of Life home page
top