One hypothesis was that the evolution of the web types involved successive reduction: spanning-thread webs → triangular webs → bolas → no web. However, the 2014 molecular phylogenetic study by Tanikawa "et al." showed that this hypothesis did not fit with the evolutionary relationships they derived. Their cladogram is shown below. (The dashed line shows where the genus "Exechocentrus" would be expected to fall based on a 2020 study.) Triangular webs could have been derived from spanning-thread webs, but spiders with no webs or that used bolas formed a completely separate monophyletic group.