[1] Gasteracantha recurva was described and illustrated by French naturalist Eugène Simon from a specimen he said was found in Manila by G. A. Baer.

The second pair was described as nearly five times longer than the first (or 4.2 mm long) and quite robust, jutting out from the abdomen for two-thirds of the spines' length and then curving backward in the last third.

[2] In 1914, Friedrich Dahl noted that the Berlin Zoological Museum possessed a single well-preserved dry specimen of the species labeled "Luzon (Jagor)."

He described the somewhat sinuous nature of the prominent abdominal spines and the tubercles studded at the bend.

He mused that the specimen might represent a deformed individual of Gasteracantha hecata but then rejected the thought.