A review of Ferkeria Roewer, 1947 (Opiliones: Laniatores: Cosmetidae), with description of a new species and catalog of the Bolivian and Peruvian Opiliones fauna

• Grant number: 13/04029-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2013
• End date: June 30, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Zoology - Taxonomy of Recent Groups
• Principal Investigator: Ricardo Pinto da Rocha
• Grantee: Yago Ferro Monteiro
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências (IB). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Opiliones is a diverse order of arachnids, with more than 6500 described species (Kury, 2003). Even so, the known diversity of tropical faunas such as the Bolivian and Peruvian are probably underestimated (Kury, 2003). Cosmetidae Koch, 1839 is one of the most diverse families of the order, with 125 genera and more than 700 described species distributed in the Antilles and from the southern USA to the extreme south of the American continent (Kury, 2003; Kury, 2011). Despite its richness and wide distribution, the family received little attention from studies of systematic review if is to be compared, for example, with Gonyleptidae. Moreover, Cosmetidae represents a great challenge in the harvestmen systematics: a great number of its genera are classified under the Roewerian system, which accounts a limited set of characters and results in a great number of monotypic genera. The family still possess artificial genera due a tendency, which began with Goodnight & Goodnight (1953), of creating genera that relied in even less characters than those of the Roewerian system. With the study of collected material from Bolivia and Peru in the years of 2010 and 2011, this project intends to present a virtual image catalogue of the Opiliones Laniatores fauna of these countries, redescribe Ferkeria vestita, type-species of the genus Ferkeria Roewer, 1947 and describe a new Bolivian species of this genus.