Pettalidae

Pettalidae
Adult Pettalus. Scale bar: 1 mm
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Arachnida
Order: Opiliones
Suborder: Cyphophthalmi
Superfamily: Pettaloidea
Family: Pettalidae
Simon, 1879
Diversity
11 genera, > 40 species

The Pettalidae are a family of harvestmen with 52 described species and subspecies in eleven genera.[1] Several undescribed species are known or assumed in some genera.[2]

Name

Pettalus is a name from Greek mythology that appears in Ovid's Metamorphoses.[2]

Description

All species except the cave-dwelling South African Speleosiro argasiformis spend their entire life cycle in leaf litter.

They are two to five millimeters long, usually with an oval shaped body.

Although all Pettalidae except Parapurcellia have eyes, these were long thought to be absent in the family, mainly because they cannot be seen by Scanning Electron Microscopy. They are often incorporated at the base of the ozophores and typically lack lenses.[1]

Distribution

The members of this family are distributed throughout former temperate Gondwana, with genera in Chile, South Africa, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, eastern and western Australia, and New Zealand, where they are most diverse by far, with 29 species and subspecies found in three genera.[2]

Relationships

Parapurcellia (eastern South Africa)

Neopurcellia (New Zealand)

Rakaia (New Zealand)

Aoraki (New Zealand)

Purcellia (western South Africa)

Chileogovea (Chile)

Karripurcellia (Western Australia)

Pettalus (Sri Lanka)

Austropurcellia (Queensland)





Phylogeny of most Pettalidae(after Boyer & Giribet 2007)

The family Pettalidae is monophyletic, although it is at the moment (2007) unclear what the nearest relatives are. It probably originated in the southern part of Gondwana.[1] Parsimony analysis suggests it could be a sister group to the remaining Cyphophthalmi, though this could also be the case for the Stylocellidae,[1] or it could be related to the Sironidae, or specifically to the sironid genus Suzukielus.[2] It is unrelated to the Troglosironidae that are endemic to New Caledonia.

The main lineages of the family may have arisen rapidly, possibly during the rapid expansion of Glossopteris forests that were predominant in temperate Gondwana. Pettalidae were likely present throughout the forests of Antarctica, which formed a land bridge between Australia and South America up until circa 50 million years ago (mya).

The Australian genera Austropurcellia (Eastern Australia: Queensland) and Karripurcellia (Western Australia) are not sister groups. It is possible that the Cyphophthalmi dispersed across Australia while the central region was covered with Nothofagus rainforest (until 37 mya), or that the ancestors of the two genera independently dispersed from adjacent landmasses now separate from Australia.[1]

Parapurcellia from eastern South Africa is sister to all other Pettalidae, while Purcellia from western South Africa is sister to the Chilean Chileogovea. Western South Africa and southern South America were last connected during the Late Jurassic, about 150 mya. Likewise, the monotypic Neopurcellia from New Zealand appears as the sister group to all Pettalidae except for Parapurcellia, instead of being monophyletic with the other two New Zealand genera, which themselves appear as sister groups in Bayesian analysis, but not in direct optimization parsimony analyses.[1]

Species

  • Aoraki denticulata major (Forster, 1952) — Arthur's Pass, South Island
  • Aoraki granulosa (Forster, 1952) — Waikato, Coromandel, and Bay of Plenty, North Island
  • Aoraki healyi (Forster, 1948) — Marlborough and Marlborough Sounds, South Island
  • Aoraki inerma (Forster, 1948) — Waikato, Tongariro, and Bay of Plenty, North Island
  • Aoraki inerma stephenensis (Forster, 1952) — Stephen's Island, Marlborough, South Island
  • Austropurcellia acuta (Popkin-Hall & Boyer, 2014)
  • Austropurcellia alata (Boyer & Reuter, 2012)
  • Austropurcellia arcticosa (Cantrell, 1980)
  • Austropurcellia barbata (Popkin-Hall & Boyer, 2014)
  • Austropurcellia capricornia (Todd Davies, 1977)
  • Austropurcellia culminis (Boyer & Reuter, 2012)
  • Austropurcellia daviesae (Juberthie, 1989)
  • Austropurcellia despectata (Boyer & Reuter, 2012)
  • Austropurcellia forsteri (Juberthie, 2000)
  • Austropurcellia scoparia Juberthie, 1988
  • Austropurcellia superbensis (Popkin-Hall & Boyer, 2014)
  • Austropurcellia vicina (Boyer & Reuter, 2012)
  • Austropurcellia woodwardi (Forster, 1955)
  • Chileogovea jocasta Shear, 1993
  • Chileogovea oedipus Roewer, 1961
  • Karripurcellia harveyi Giribet, 2003
  • Karripurcellia peckorum Giribet, 2003
  • Karripurcellia sierwaldae Giribet, 2003
  • Manangotria taolanaro Shear & Gruber, 1996
  • Neopurcellia salmoni Forster, 1948
  • Parapurcellia fissa (Lawrence, 1939)
  • Parapurcellia monticola (Lawrence, 1939)
  • Parapurcellia rumpiana (Lawrence, 1933)
  • Parapurcellia silvicola (Lawrence, 1939)
  • Pettalus brevicauda Pocock, 1897
  • Pettalus cimiciformis (O. P-Cambridge, 1875)
  • Pettalus lampetides Sharma & Giribet, 2006
  • Purcellia illustrans Hansen & Sørensen, 1904
  • Purcellia peregrinator Lawrence, 1963
  • Purcellia transvaalica Lawrence, 1963
  • Rakaia antipodiana Hirst, 1925 — Rakaia Gorge, Canterbury, South Island
  • Rakaia dorothea (Phillipps & Grimmett, 1932) — Wellington and Wairarapa, North Island
  • Rakaia florensis (Forster, 1948) — Nelson, South Island
  • Rakaia isolata Forster, 1952 — North Canterbury, South Island
  • Rakaia lindsayi Forster, 1952 — Stewart Island
  • Rakaia macra Boyer & Giribet, 2003 — Waipori, Otago, South Island
  • Rakaia magna Forster, 1948 — Wellington, North Island
  • Rakaia magna australis Forster, 1952 — Lewis Pass, South Island
  • Rakaia media Forster, 1948 — Tongariro and Bay of Plenty, North Island
  • Rakaia minutissima (Forster, 1948) — Waikato, South Island
  • Rakaia pauli Forster, 1952 — Mid-Canterbury, South Island
  • Rakaia solitaria Forster, 1948 — Opouawa Gully, West Wairarapa, North Island
  • Rakaia sorenseni Forster, 1952 — Southland and Dunedin, South Island
  • Rakaia sorenseni digitata Forster, 1952 — Chaslands, Otago, South Island
  • Rakaia stewartiensis Forster, 1948 — Stewart Island
  • Rakaia uniloca Forster, 1952 — Marlborough Sounds, South Island
  • Speleosiro argasiformis Lawrence, 1931

The monotypic Ankaratra franzi Shear & Gruber, 1996 from Madagascar is sometimes placed in this family,[2] but is as of 2007 considered incertae sedis within the Cyphophthalmi.[3]

See also

Footnotes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Boyer & Giribet 2007
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Giribet, Gonzalo & Boyer, Sarah L. (2007): Pettalidae Shear, 1980. In: Pinto-da-Rocha et al. 2007: 99ff
  3. ↑ Cyphophthalmi checklist

References

Wikispecies has information related to: Pettalidae
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