Family PARONELLIDAE Börner, 1913

Pseudoparonella queenslandica

© Copyright J. Thurmer. CSIRO Entomology.

Museums

Regional Maps

• Paronellini Börner, C. 1906. Das System der Collembolen nebst Beschreibung neuer Collembolen des Hamburger Naturhistorischen Museums. Mitteilungen aus dem Naturhistorischen Museum in Hamburg 23: 147-188 [162].

  Type genus:

   Paronella Schott, 1893.

Introduction

In Australia this family is represented by nine genera, two subgenera and 19 species. Species are particularly abundant and diverse in cool temperate regions such as Tasmania. The family is absent from cool temperate forests in the Northern Hemisphere. This demonstrates that the Australian collembolan fauna has different origins and biogeographical history from that of Europe and North America.

A number of relatively recent taxonomic changes are as follows. The description of the genus Paronana Womersley, 1939 was based on Australian material but it does not occur in Australia as it was based on a misidentified specimen. 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. It has been suggested that the genus Metacoelura Salmon, 1951 may more correctly belong in the family Entomobryidae. Paronellides tasmanica quoted in Greenslade (1990) is a nomen nudum.

Practically all members of the family in Australia are epigaeic and live on trees and shrubs, epiphytes and, rarely, grasses as well as occasionally superficially in leaf litter. They are mainly restricted to humid forests in northern, tropical and southern cool temperate parts of the country, where they are often abundant. However several species appear to be restricted to mountain grassy vegetation over about 1500 m in altitude. One exception to this distribution is Pseudoparonella halophila Womersley, with a restricted and unusual distribution under stones in a marine littoral habitat on Rottnest Island, Western Australia although it may also occur in south-west Western Australia in the same habitat. Another genus, Metacoelura is represented by two species and only found on grasses in the very northern part of the continent in arid and semi-arid areas. One undescribed genus with two species is found in caves in Tasmania.

Diagnosis

Characterised by: thorax I reduced and without chaetae, mandibular plate present, post-antennal organ absent, abdominal segments not fused, abdomen IV much longer than abdomen III, scales present or absent, dens straight, arms divergent, hardly tapering and not annulated, mucro broad but short, with 1–4 teeth.

Systematics

sensu Soto-Adames et al. 2008

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

Soto-Adames, F.N., Barra, J.-A., Christiansen, K. & Jordana, R. 2008. Suprageneric Classification of Collembola Entomobryomorpha. Annals of the Entomological Society of America 101(3): 501–513

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.

Zhang, F. & Deharveng, L. 2015. A revision of Pseudoparonella, Plumachaetas, Parachaetoceras and Lawrenceana (Collembola: Paronellidae), with descriptions of three new species from New Caledonia. Zootaxa 4058(4): 561-577

History of changes