Family PARONELLIDAE

Pseudoparonella queenslandica

© Copyright J. Thurmer. CSIRO Entomology.

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Regional Maps

Introduction

In Australia this family is represented by 6 genera and subgenera and 16 species. The description of the genus Paronana Womersley, 1939 was based on Australian material but it does not occur here as it is based on a misidentified species. The specimen identified as Paronella bidenticulata Carpenter, 1925 by Womersley (1934, 1939) from Belgrave, Victoria, belongs to the genus Pseudoparonella Handschin (Mitra, pers. comm.) based on the presence of scales on the body and two dental scale appendages. The lectotype of Paronella bidenticulata, the type species of Paronana Womersley, 1939, is now in the Manchester Museum.

Practically all members of the family in Australia are epigaeic and live on trees and shrubs, epiphytes and grasses as well as occasionally superficially in leaf litter. They are almost entirely restricted to northern, humid tropical and southern cool temperate parts of the country, where they are often abundant. One undescribed genus with two species is found in caves in Tasmania.

Paronellides tasmanica quoted in Greenslade (1990) is a nomen nudum.

Diagnosis

Characterised by: thorax I reduced and without setae, mandibular plate present, post-antennal organ absent, abdominal segments not fused, abdomen IV much longer than abdomen III, scales present or absent, dens straight, not tapering or annulated, dentes at an acute angle to each other, mucro broad but short, with 1–4 teeth.

General References

Greenslade, P. 1990. Collembola and other soil invertebrates (1990). pp. 47-56 in Driessen, M.M., Comfort, M.D., Jackson, J., Balmer, J., Richardson, A.M.M. & McQuillan, P.B. (eds). Pelion Plains — Mt Ossa. Wilderness Ecosystems Baseline Studies 1990–1993. Hobart, Tasmania : Parks and Wildlife Service Wildlife Report Vol. 2

Greenslade, P. & Yoshii, R. 2000. New records and redescriptions of some Schött and Womersley paronellid species from Australia including a key to genera. Contributions from the Biological Laboratory Kyoto University 29(2): 139-155

Mitra, S.K. 1993. Chaetotaxy, phylogeny and biogeography of Paronellinae (Collembola: Entomobryidae). Records of the Zoological Survey of India Occ. Papers 154: 1-100, pls I-VII

Womersley, H. 1934. A preliminary account of the Collembola-Arthropleona of Australia. Part II Superfamily Entomobryoidea. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 58: 86-138

Womersley, H. 1939. Primitive Insects of South Australia. Silverfish, springtails and their allies. Adelaide : Frank Trigg, Government Printer 322 pp. 1 pl