Cryptachaea is a genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of spider

Spider

Spiders are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, and chelicerae with fangs that inject venom. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all other groups of organisms...

s in the Theridiidae

Theridiidae

Theridiidae is a large family of spiders, also known as the tangle-web spiders, cobweb spiders and comb-footed spiders. The diverse family includes over 2200 species in over 100 genera) of three-dimensional space-web-builders found throughout the world...

 (tangle web spider) family.

Taxonomy

Many species in this genus used to reside in Achaearanea

Achaearanea

Achaearanea is a genus of spiders in the Theridiidae family.-Taxonomy:This genus used to include the extremely abundant common house spider, which was transferred to genus Parasteatoda in 2006, together with many other species. A. veruculata and many more species were moved to genus Cryptachaea in...

, which received a major revision in 2008. The genus was originally established as a subgenus of Theridion

Theridion

The spider genus Theridion, after which the family Theridiidae is named, consists of almost 600 described species that occur all around the world....

.

Distribution

This is mostly a New World

New World

The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...

 genus, with many species in South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

. One species is cosmopolitan, one species occurs in the whole Palearctic

Palearctic

The Palearctic or Palaearctic is one of the eight ecozones dividing the Earth's surface.Physically, the Palearctic is the largest ecozone...

, another only in China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

. C. veruculata was introduced to Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 from New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

.

Name

The genus name is a combination of Achaea, the old name of the genus Achaearanea, and Ancient Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 κρυπτός "hidden". The genus is called Iwama-himegumo zoku in Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

.

Species

• Cryptachaea acoreensis (Berland, 1932) — Cosmopolitan
• Cryptachaea alacris (Keyserling, 1884) — Colombia, Venezuela
• Cryptachaea altiventer (Keyserling, 1884) — Brazil
• Cryptachaea ambera (Levi, 1963) — USA
• Cryptachaea analista (Levi, 1963) — Brazil
• Cryptachaea anastema (Levi, 1963) — Venezuela
• Cryptachaea azteca (Chamberlin & Ivie, 1936) — Mexico
• Cryptachaea banosensis (Levi, 1963) — Ecuador
• Cryptachaea barra (Levi, 1963) — Brazil
• Cryptachaea bellula (Keyserling, 1891) — Brazil
• Cryptachaea caliensis (Levi, 1963) — Colombia, Ecuador
• Cryptachaea canionis (Chamberlin & Gertsch, 1929) — USA
• Cryptachaea caqueza (Levi, 1963) — Colombia
• Cryptachaea chilensis (Levi, 1963) — Chile
• Cryptachaea chiricahua (Levi, 1955) — USA
• Cryptachaea cinnabarina (Levi, 1963) — Brazil
• Cryptachaea diamantina (Levi, 1963) — Brazil
• Cryptachaea dromedariformis (Roewer, 1942) — Ecuador, Peru
• Cryptachaea eramus (Levi, 1963) — Brazil
• Cryptachaea fresno (Levi, 1955) — USA
• Cryptachaea gigantea (Keyserling, 1884) — Peru
• Cryptachaea hirta (Taczanowski, 1873) — Panama to Argentina
• Cryptachaea inops (Levi, 1963) — Brazil, Guyana
• Cryptachaea insulsa (Gertsch & Mulaik, 1936) — USA, Mexico
• Cryptachaea isana (Levi, 1963) — Brazil
• Cryptachaea jequirituba (Levi, 1963) — Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina
• Cryptachaea kaspi (Levi, 1963) — Peru
• Cryptachaea koepckei (Levi, 1963) — Peru
• Cryptachaea lota (Levi, 1963) — Chile
• Cryptachaea manzanillo (Levi, 1959) — Mexico
• Cryptachaea maraca (Buckup & Marques, 1991) — Brazil
• Cryptachaea maxima (Keyserling, 1891) — Brazil
• Cryptachaea meraukensis (Chrysanthus, 1963) — New Guinea
• Cryptachaea migrans (Keyserling, 1884) — Venezuela to Peru, Brazil
• Cryptachaea milagro (Levi, 1963) — Ecuador
• Cryptachaea nayaritensis (Levi, 1959) — Mexico
• Cryptachaea oblivia (O. P.-Cambridge, 1896) — Costa Rica, Panama
• Cryptachaea orana (Levi, 1963) — Ecuador
• Cryptachaea pallipera (Levi, 1963) — Brazil
• Cryptachaea parana (Levi, 1963) — Paraguay
• Cryptachaea passiva (Keyserling, 1891) — Brazil
• Cryptachaea pilaton (Levi, 1963) — Ecuador
• Cryptachaea pinguis (Keyserling, 1886) — Brazil, Uruguay
• Cryptachaea porteri (Banks, 1896) — USA to Panama, West Indies
• Cryptachaea projectivulva (Yoshida, 2001) — Japan
• Cryptachaea pura (O. P.-Cambridge, 1894) — Mexico
• Cryptachaea pusillana (Roewer, 1942) — French Guiana
• Cryptachaea pydanieli (Buckup & Marques, 1991) — Brazil
• Cryptachaea rafaeli (Buckup & Marques, 1991) — Brazil
• Cryptachaea rapa (Levi, 1963) — Paraguay
• Cryptachaea rioensis (Levi, 1963) — Brazil
• Cryptachaea riparia (Blackwall, 1834) — Palearctic
• Cryptachaea rostra (Zhu & Zhang, 1992) — China
• Cryptachaea rostrata (O. P.-Cambridge, 1896) — Mexico to Venezuela
• Cryptachaea rupicola (Emerton, 1882) — USA, Canada
• Cryptachaea schneirlai (Levi, 1959) — Panama
• Cryptachaea schraderorum (Levi, 1959) — Costa Rica
• Cryptachaea serenoae (Gertsch & Archer, 1942) — USA
• Cryptachaea sicki (Levi, 1963) — Brazil
• Cryptachaea taeniata (Keyserling, 1884) — Guatemala to Peru
• Cryptachaea tovarensis (Levi, 1963) — Venezuela
• Cryptachaea trinidensis (Levi, 1959) — Trinidad, Peru
• Cryptachaea uviana (Levi, 1963) — Peru
• Cryptachaea veruculata (Urquhart, 1886) — Australia, New Zealand, England, Belgium
• Cryptachaea vivida (Keyserling, 1891) — Brazil
• Cryptachaea zonensis (Levi, 1959) — Panama to Peru, Brazil