New familial assignment for two harvestmen species of the infraorder Grassatores (Arachnida: Opiliones: Laniatores)

ABEL PÉREZ GONZÁLEZ

ZOOTAXA

MAGNOLIA PRESS

Año: 2011 p. 24 - 28

1175-5326

While revising the members of Samoidae and the Brazilian Grassatores incertae sedis in the Naturmuseum Senckenberg, Sektion Arachnologie (SMF) in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, I had the possibility to study two harvestmen species whose male genitalia were previously unknown and whose systematic placement remained obscure even after the comprehensive systematic overview offered in the recent book of biology of Opiliones. The male genitalia of both species exhibit characters to support their new familial assignments. The male genitalia of Phalangodinus analis show clearly the ventral plate of the pars distalis divided into pergula and rutrum, which is a characteristic of Zalmoxidae and Fissiphalliidae and the stragulum is quite different from the enlarged fingerlike stragulum of Fissiphalliidae. The short rutrum and the wide and short stragulum with a deep median cleft (dividing the stragulum in two branches) diagnose the species as a member of Zamoxidae. Phalangodinus analis is tentatively placed in the genus Pirassunungoleptes H.E.M. Soares, 1966, to which it shows the closest affiliation in terms of the following characters: minute size (less than 2 mm); pyriform habitus, ocularium small, near the frontal margin of the carapace; anal operculum with a row of pointed aphophyses, and femur and tibia IV armed with a remarkable ventral acute apophyses. This placement has to be verified within a more comprehensive revision of this and related genera. Waigeucola Roewer, 1949, is a monotypic genus originally described in Phalangodidae: Samoinae. The type species is Waigeucola palpalis by original designation. This species is hereby considered as a member of Podoctidae because it possesses the male genitalia typical of the family with the ventral plate deeply cleft and a well developed follis. Also, the tubercular bridge in the carapace exhibited by this species is considered a possible synapomorphy of Podoctidae. No evidence was found for placing this species in another existing podoctid genus, therefore it is transferred to this family with its original valid genus.