Skip to main content Skip to main navigation menu Skip to site footer
Type: Articles
Published: 2012-03-16
Page range: 1–35
Abstract views: 45
PDF downloaded: 1

New Australasian Zalmoxidae (Opiliones: Laniatores) and a new case of male polymorphism in Opiliones

Museum of Comparative Zoology, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Arachnida Grassatores Zalmoxis Metazalmoxis Southwest Pacific intrasexual polymorphism

Abstract

Six new species of litter-inhabiting harvestmen, four from New Caledonia and two from Australia, in the genus ZalmoxisSørensen, 1886 (Opiliones: Laniatores: Zalmoxidae) are described and illustrated using light microscropy and SEM. Amolecular phylogeny including these and related species indicates that the New Caledonian Zalmoxis are monophyletic,though the morphology of one species is consistent with the apomorphies of Metazalmoxis Roewer, 1912. Accordingly,Zalmoxis Sørensen, 1886 is considered the senior synonym of Metazalmoxis Roewer, 1912 new synonymy. Zalmoxistherefore remains the sole zalmoxid genus outside of the Neotropics. The new species add significantly to the known mor-phological diversity of Zalmoxidae, specifically in the case of one species from Queensland, Australia, with polymorphic males—the first such record for the superfamily Zalmoxoidea.

References

  1. Buzatto, B.A., Requena, G.S., Lourenco, R.S., Munguia-Steyer, R. & Machado, G. (2011) Conditional male dimorphism and alternative reproductive tactics in a Neotropical arachnid (Opiliones). Evolutionary Ecology, 25, 331–349.

    Castresana, J. (2000) Selection of conserved blocks from multiple alignments for their use in phylogenetic analyses. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 17, 540–552.

    Edgar, R.C. (2004) MUSCLE: multiple sequence alignment with high accuracy and high throughput. Nucleic Acids Research, 32, 1792–1797.

    Emlen, D.J. & Nijhout, H.F. (2001) Hormonal control of male horn length dimorphism in Onthophagus taurus (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae): a second critical period of sensitivity to juvenile hormone. Journal of Insect Physiology, 47, 1045–1054.

    Forster, R.R. (1944) The genus Megalopsalis Roewer in New Zealand with keys to the New Zealand genera of Opiliones. Records of the Dominion Museum, 1, 183–192.

    Forster, R.R. (1955) Further Australian harvestmen. Australian Journal of Zoology, 3, 354–411.

    Fusco, G., and A. Minelli. (2010) Phenotypic plasticity in development and evolution: facts and concepts. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 365, 547–556.

    Giribet, G., Vogt, L., Pérez-González, A., Sharma, P. & Kury, A.B. (2010) A multilocus approach to harvestman (Arachnida: Opiliones) phylogeny with emphasis on the biogeography and systematics of Laniatores. Cladistics, 26, 408–437.

    González-Sponga, M.A. (1987) Aracnidos de Venezuela. Opiliones Laniatores I. Familias Phalangodidae y Agoristenidae. Academia de Ciencias Fisicas, Matematicas y Naturales, Caracas, 562 pp.

    Goodnight, C.J. & Goodnight, M.L. (1947) Report on a collection of phalangids from New Guinea. Transactions of the American Microscopical Society, 66(4), 328–338.

    Goodnight, C.J. & Goodnight, M.L. (1948) New phalangids from the southwest Pacific. American Museum Novitates, 1371, 1–14.

    Goodnight, C.J. & Goodnight, M.L. (1957) Opiliones. In: Insects of Micronesia. Bernice P. Bishop Museum, 3(2), 71–83.

    Goodnight, C.J. & Goodnight, M.L. (1983) Opiliones of the family Phalangodidae found in Costa Rica. The Journal of Arachnology, 11, 201–242.

    Knell, R.J. (2009) On the analysis of non-linear allometries. Ecological Entomology, 34, 1–11.

    Murphree, C.S. (1988) Morphology of the dorsal integument of ten opilionid species (Arachnida, Opiliones). The Journal of Arachnology, 16, 237–252.

    Nijhout, H. F. (2003) Development and evolution of adaptive polyphenisms. Evolution & Development, 5, 9–18.

    Rambaut, A.E. (1996) Se-Al sequence alignment editor. University of Oxford, UK Program and documentation available from: <http://evolve.zoo.ox.ac.uk/software>

    Rambla, M. (1983) Opiliones (Arachnida). In: Annales du Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale 8/242, Contributions à l’étude de la faune terrestre des îles granitiques de l’archipel des Séchelles, pp. 2–15.

    Roewer, C.F. (1912) Die Familien der Assamiiden und Phalangodiden der Opiliones-Laniatores (Assamiden, Dampetriden, Phalangodiden, Epedaniden, Biantiden, Zalmoxiden, Samoiden, Palpidediden anderer Autoren). Archiv für Naturgeschichte, Berlin, Abteilung A, 78(3), 1–242.

    Roewer, C.F. (1915) 106 neue Opilioniden. Archiv für Naturgeschichte, Berlin, Abteilung A, 81(3), 1–152.

    Roewer, C.F. (1923) Die Weberknechte der Erde. Systematische Bearbeitung der bisher bekannten Opiliones. Gustav Fischer, Jena, 1116 pp.

    Roewer, C.F. (1926) Opiliones vom Mount Maquiling auf Luzon Philippinen. Philippine Journal of Science, 29(4), 545–559.

    Roewer, C.F. (1927) Weitere Weberknechte I. Abhandlungen der Naturwissenschaftlichen Verein zu Bremen 26 (2), 261–402.

    Roewer, C.F. (1949) Über Phalangodiden I: Subfam. Phalangodinae, Tricommatinae, Samoinae; Weitere Weberknechte XIII. Senckenbergiana, 30(1), 11–61.

    Sharma, P. & Giribet, G. (2009a) Sandokanid phylogeny based on eight molecular markers—The evolution of a southeast Asian endemic family of Laniatores (Arachnida, Opiliones). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 52(2), 432–447.

    Sharma, P. & Giribet, G. (2009b) A relict in New Caledonia: phylogenetic relationships of the family Troglosironidae (Opiliones: Cyphophthalmi). Cladistics, 25(3), 279–294.

    Sharma, P.P. & Giribet, G. (2011) The evolutionary and biogeographic history of the armoured harvestmen–Laniatores phylogeny based on ten molecular markers, with the description of two new families of Opiliones. Invertebrate Systematics, in press.

    Sharma, P.P., Kury, A.B. & Giribet, G. (2011) Zalmoxidae of the Paleotropics: a catalogue of Southeast Asian and Indo-Pacific species. Zootaxa, 2972, 37–58.

    Shear, W.A. (1993) The genus Troglosiro and the new family Troglosironidae (Opiliones, Cyphophthalmi). The Journal of Arachnology, 21, 81–90.

    Soares, H.E.M. & Avram, S. (1981) Opilionides du Venezuela I. Travaux de l’Institut de Spéologie “Émile Racovitza”, 20, 75–95.

    Sørensen, W. (1886) Opiliones Australasiae. In: Koch L. and Keyserling, E. (Eds.) Die Arachniden Australiens nach der Natur beschrieben und abgebidet. Bauer & Raspe, pp. 53–86.

    Stamatakis, A. (2006) RAxML-VI-HPC: maximum likelihood-based phylogenetic analyses with thousands of taxa and mixed models. Bioinformatics, 22, 2688–2690.

    Stamatakis, A., Hoover, P. & Rougemont, J. (2008) A rapid bootstrap algorithm for the RAxML Web servers. Systematic Biology, 57, 758–771.

    Staręga, W. (1989) Harvestmen (Opiliones) from the Mascarene Islands and the resurrection of the family Zalmoxidae. Annals of the Natal Museum, 30, 1–8.

    Shuster, S.M. & Wade, M.J. (2003) Mating systems and strategies. Princeton University Press, Princeton.

    Taborsky, M., Oliveira, R.F. & Brockmann, H.J. (2008) The evolution of alternative reproductive tactics: concepts and questions. In: Oliveira, R.F., Taborsky, M., Brockmann, H.J. (eds) Alternative reproductive tactics: an integrative approach. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 1–21.

    Taylor, C.K. (2011) Revision of the genus Megalopsalis (Arachnida: Opiliones: Phalangioidea) in Australia and New Zealand and implications for phalangioid classification. Zootaxa, 2773, 1–65.

    Tomkins, J.L. & Hazel, W. (2007) The status of the conditional evolutionarily stable strategy. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 22, 522–528.

    West-Eberhard, M.J. (2003) Developmental plasticity and evolution. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

    Zatz, C., Werneck, R.M., Macías-Ordóñez, R. & Machado, G. (2011) Alternative mating tactics in dimorphic males of the harvestman Longiperna concolor (Arachnida: Opiliones). Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 65, 995–1005.