Orbiculariae

As of September 2018[update], the weight of the evidence strongly favours the non-monophyly of "Orbiculariae" and hence the early evolution of orb webs, followed by multiple changes and losses.

Whether spiders that weave true orb webs form a coherent group, and so should be classified together, is a question that has a long history.

Following John Blackwall in 1841 and Philipp Bertkau in 1878, for a long time the majority of araneologists accepted spiders with a cribellum as a coherent taxon, Cribellatae.

[3][4] In 2014, Hormiga and Griswold reviewed the phylogeny of orb-weaving spiders, producing a summary based on what they considered to be the nine most comprehensive studies prior to their article.

Hormiga and Griswold suggested a cladogram similar to the preferred version of Blackledge et al. (2009):[8][9] Non-orb-weaving spiders (Eresoidea, RTA clade, etc.)

An alternative hypothesis, increasingly supported by molecular phylogenetic studies, is that the Orbiculariae are paraphyletic (i.e. do not form a good taxon).