Filistatids are haplogyne cribellate araneomorphs, meaning they lack hardened, sclerotised female genitalia, they have a cribellum for producing flocculent silk and they are modern weavers with one pair of book lungs, not primitive ground dwelling spiders wjho have two pairs. Most other haplogyne spiders do not have a cribellum. Until Mike Gray revised the Ausralian members of the family in 1994, only one, Filistata australiensis L. Koch, 1873, had been described from Australia (now Wandella australiensis). Gray found filistatid spiders were widely distributed in Australia, in habitats ranging from arid zone rangelands to rainforest. Some species make small, irregular, cribellate sheet webs, with one to four more or less distinct funnel entrances under loose bark usually of Eucalyptus spp. along watercourses, or in leaf litter, under rocks, or in caves. Some inland species make soil burrows. (Gray,1994)
Wandella murrayensis Gray 1994
A small to medium-sized spider found under bark in South Australia and Victoria along the Murray River. Eight eyes in two rows, the front row... 
