Australian Biological Resources Study

Australian Faunal Directory

<I>Australella </I>sp.

Australella sp.

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Family BRACHYSTOMELLIDAE Stach, 1949


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).

Australian representation is reviewed by Greenslade (2018), who recognised seven genera and detailed Cassagnella.

 

Diagnosis

Characterised by: thorax I setose, mandibular plate absent, mandible completely absent, maxilla without lamellae but with several teeth.

 

History of changes

Note that this list may be incomplete for dates prior to September 2013.
Published As part of group Action Date Action Type Compiler(s)
28-Jun-2018 COLLEMBOLA Lubbock, 1870 02-May-2018 MODIFIED Dr Alice Wells
28-Feb-2013 28-Feb-2013 MODIFIED
12-Feb-2010 (import)