Ischyropsalis


Ischyropsalis is a genus of harvestmen in the family Ischyropsalididae, found in Europe. There are more than 20 described species in Ischyropsalis.

Description

Species in this genus range in body length from about four to 8.5 mm. They have moderately long legs. The greatly enlarged chelicerae can be almost twice as long as the body. While they share this feature with the Nipponopsalididae, this is a case of convergent evolution. The elongated pedipalps are rather slender. Some species occur in caves.

Distribution

Members of this genus are restricted to Europe, with many species found in the mountains. They reach into the Netherlands, northwestern Germany and Poland in the north and to Calabria in the south. A find from Sardinia is considered doubtful.

Name

The genus name is a combination of Ancient Greek ischyros "strong" and psalis "shears", referring to the greatly enlarged chelicerae.

Species

These 21 species belong to the genus Ischyropsalis:
The following were determined to be synonyms of the above species and are no longer valid.
According to L. Labrada and C. Prieto in Schönhofer, "Establishment of the present-day taxonomy and validating species-specific characters in Ischyropsalis have been mainly facilitated by the thorough revision of Martens. Having been unable to borrow many types from the Iberian Peninsula, part of his work remained hypothetical for that local fauna, which was later corrected by Dresco, Luque and Prieto. Of the 42 species described or emended by Roewer only two remain valid."