RTA clade

The RTA clade is a clade of araneomorph spiders, united by the possession of a retrolateral tibial apophysis – a backward-facing projection on the tibia of the male pedipalp.^[1] The clade contains over 21,000 species, almost half the current total of about 46,000 known species of spider.^[2] Most of the members of the clade are wanderers and do not build webs.^[3] Despite making up approximately half of all modern spider diversity, there are no unambiguous records of the group from the Mesozoic and molecular clock evidence suggests that the group began to diversify during the Late Cretaceous.^[4]

RTA clade Temporal range: Paleogene–Recent PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Male Alopecosa albofasciata, a wolf spider and member of the RTA clade
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Subphylum:	Chelicerata
Class:	Arachnida
Order:	Araneae
Infraorder:	Araneomorphae
Clade:	Entelegynae
Clade:	RTA clade
Clades
Dionycha and see text

Families

In 2005, Coddington included 39 families in a cladogram showing the RTA clade:^[5]

• Agelenidae
• Amaurobiidae
• Ammoxenidae
• Amphinectidae (paraphyletic; merged into Desidae)
• Anyphaenidae
• Cithaeronidae
• Clubionidae
• Corinnidae
• Cryptothelidae
• Ctenidae
• Desidae
• Dictynidae
• Gallieniellidae
• Gnaphosidae
• Lamponidae
• Liocranidae
• Lycosidae
• Miturgidae (paraphyletic)
• Oxyopidae
• Philodromidae
• Phyxelididae
• Pisauridae
• Psechridae
• Salticidae
• Selenopidae
• Senoculidae
• Sparassidae
• Stiphidiidae
• Tengellidae (now merged into Zoropsidae)
• Thomisidae
• Titanoecidae
• Trechaleidae
• Trochanteriidae
• Zodariidae
• Zoridae (now a synonym of Miturgidae)
• Zorocratidae (no longer accepted; most genera now placed in Udubidae)
• Zoropsidae