Family AUSTROCHILIDAE Zapfe, 1955
- Austrochilidae Zapfe, 1955.
Introduction
In Australia, the Austrochilidae are represented by only a single but magnificent species, Hickmania troglodytes, which builds massive sheet webs in dark hollows in southern Tasmania. The spiders also find inviting the dark spaces in the cellars under houses around Hobart. They are remarkable but not unique in Australia among the Araneomorphae having two pairs of book lungs. This is a plesiomorphic condition also seen in the Mygalomorphae and the primitive segmented Liphistiidae of South-East Asia.