The Pimoidae 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...

 family is a rather small group of 37 species in four genera. They are monophyletic, and probably closest related to the Linyphiidae

Linyphiidae

Linyphiidae is a family of spiders, including more than 4,300 described species in 578 genera worldwide. This makes Linyphiidae the second largest family of spiders after the Salticidae. New species are still being discovered throughout the world, and the family is poorly known...

.

Distribution

The Pimoidae form a relictual group along the western coast of North America, Europe (Alps

Alps

The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....

, Apennines

Apennine mountains

The Apennines or Apennine Mountains or Greek oros but just as often used alone as a noun. The ancient Greeks and Romans typically but not always used "mountain" in the singular to mean one or a range; thus, "the Apennine mountain" refers to the entire chain and is translated "the Apennine...

 and Cantabrian Mountains

Cantabrian Mountains

The Cantabrian Mountains or Cantabrian Range are one of the main systems of mountain ranges in Spain.They extend for more than approximately 180 miles across northern Spain, from the western limit of the Pyrenees to the edges of the Galician Massif close to Galicia, along the coast of the...

 of northern Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

) and the Himalayas

Himalayas

The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...

. This makes a holarctic

Holarctic

The Holarctic ecozone refers to the habitats found throughout the northern continents of the world as a whole. This region is divided into the Palearctic, consisting of Northern Africa and all of Eurasia, with the exception of Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent, and the Nearctic,...

 predecessor probable. In 2003, a species was found in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. The species Pimoa cthulhu

Pimoa cthulhu

Pimoa cthulhu is a species of the spider family Pimoidae. It is one of twenty one described species in the genus Pimoa.-Etymology:Pimoa is derived from the language of the Gosiute people in Utah and means "big legs"...

, described by Gustavo Hormiga in 1994, is named for Howard Phillips Lovecraft's

H. P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....

 mythological deity Cthulhu

Cthulhu

Cthulhu is a fictional character that first appeared in the short story "The Call of Cthulhu", published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928. The character was created by writer H. P...

.

Genera

• Nanoa
  Nanoa
  Nanoa is a sister genus of Pimoa, in the spider family Pimoidae, containing the single species Nanoa enana.-Etymology:Combined from Greek nanos "dwarf" and the ending -oa, which follows the other pimoid genera Pimoa and Weintrauboa.The epitheton enana of the only species means "dwarf" in...
  
  Hormiga, Buckle & Scharff, 2005
• Nanoa enana Hormiga, Buckle & Scharff, 2005 — USA

• Pimoa
  Pimoa
  Pimoa is a genus of spiders in the Pimoidae family. Its sister genus is Nanoa.-Etymology:Pimoa is derived from the language of the Gosiute people in Utah with the meaning "big legs"...
  
  Chamberlin & Ivie, 1943 — North America, Asia, Europe (27 species)

• Putaoa Hormiga & Tu, 2008 — China
• Putaoa huaping Hormiga & Tu, 2008 — China
• Putaoa megacantha (Xu & Li, 2007) — China

• Weintrauboa
  Weintrauboa
  Weintrauboa is a spider genus of the small Pimoidae family. The nearest relatives of Weintrauboa are in the Pimoa genus.-Species:* Weintrauboa chikunii * Weintrauboa contortipes -References:...
  
  Hormiga, 2003 — China, Japan, Russia (7 species)
• Weintrauboa chikunii (Oi, 1979) — Russia, Japan
• Weintrauboa contortipes (Karsch, 1881) — Russia, Japan

Resource Links

• Pimoidae : Pimoidae page on Tree of Life Web Project.