Family BRACHYSTOMELLIDAE
Australella sp.
© Copyright J. Thurmer. CSIRO Entomology.
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Family BRACHYSTOMELLIDAE
Compiler and date details
Penelope Greenslade, School of Botany and Zoology, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Introduction
This family is treated as a subfamily by many authors (see Massoud 1967), but Stach (1949), Fjellberg (1985) and Deharveng (2004) use the name at family level. Eight genera and 21 species have been recorded from Australia, but there are many more species and a few genera yet to be described. One genus, Rapoportella Ellis & Bellinger, 1973, is known only from Kangaroo Island in addition to southern South America from where it was described. The family is very well developed in southern, humid regions of the continent. Many species are associated with fungal fruiting bodies and probably feed for part of their life cycle at least exclusively on fungal spores (Greenslade et al. 2002); others are found in leaf litter and on grasses in damp situations. The geographical distribution of the family is documented by Najt and Weiner (1996) and the phylogeny examined by Najt et al. (2005).
Diagnosis
Characterised by: thorax I setose, mandibular plate absent, mandible completely absent, maxilla without lamellae but with several teeth.
General References
Deharveng, L. 2004. Recent advances in Collembola systematics. Pedobiologia 48(5-6): 413-433
Fjellberg, A. 1985. Arctic Collembola—Alaskan Collembola of the families Poduridae, Hypogastruridae, Odontellidae, Brachystomellidae and Neanuridae. Entomologica Scandinavica. Supplementum 21: 1-126
Greenslade, P., Simpson, J.A. & Grgurinovic, C.A. 2002. Collembola associated with fungal fruit-bodies in Australia. Pedobiologia 46: 345-352
Massoud, Z. 1967. Monographie des Neanuridae, Collemboles Poduromorphes à pièces buccales modifiées. Biologie de l´Amérique Australe 4: 1-399
Najt, J. & Weiner, W.M. 1996. Geographical distribution of Brachystomellinae (Collembola: Neanuridae). Pan-Pacific Entomologist 72(2): 61-69
Najt, J., Weiner, M. & Grandcolas, P. 2005. Phylogeny of the Brachystomellidae (Collembola) — were the mandibles ancestrally absent and did they re-appear in this family? Zoologica Scripta 34: 305-312
Stach, J. 1949. The Apterygotan fauna of Poland in relation to the world-fauna of this group of insects. Families: Neogastruridae and Brachystomellidae. Cracow : Pol. Acad. Sci. Lett. Pt 2 341 pp. 35 pls