Recently I took a photo of this cave-dwelling harvestman some 300 meters from the entrance in a northern peruvian cave (1500 metres above sea level). Could you please help me to identify the Genus and Family? Thank you very much.
Greatings from Peru and a happy new year!
Stefan
Try uploading the observation to iNatrualist. There are many species experts on this platform, also for South American ecosystems. In addition, the data point will then also be synchronised with GBIF and made available to the public.
@Stefan: sorry, I am not into arachnids. Any ID from my side would be mere guessing and I won't throw names into the room I can't verify. However I can tell harvestman from spider: it is Opiliones, not a cave spider.
@Zhe Zhao: Pro- and Ophistosoma are connected in the whole width. This should be, as mentioned in the question, a harvestman (Opiliones) and not a spider.
Hi Stefan. It is a very troglomorphic and posible troglobite opiliones (endemic from these cave). Including can be a new species. Did you sample?. Please write me ([email protected]) then we can talk a Little more about this amazing animal.
Not an Opiliones expert here. Many of the morphological features on this specimen reflect troglomorphic adaptations, presumably the reason why it cannot be easily keyed down to family level.
To me, this specimen of Laniatores belongs to a gonyleptoid family though it does not feature a typical gonyleptid morphology. Several such families like Otilioleptidae include cave adapted taxa. Among them, to me, Agoristenidae may be a closer match.
BTW, FYA, the pedipalpi seem to have exceptionally long femora which may help you as a diagmostic feature.
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