Cosmetidae is a family of harvestmen in the suborder Laniatores. With over 700 species, it is one of the largest families in Opiliones. They are distributed from Argentina to the southern USA with the highest diversity in northern South America, Central America and Mexico. This

Nearctic The Nearctic realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting the Earth's land surface. The Nearctic realm covers most of North America, including Greenland, Central Florida, and the highlands of Mexico. The parts of North America t ...

- Neotropical family comprises Opiliones with elaborate white/yellow/green/orange/red stripes and spots on the dorsal scutum and peculiar pedipalps strongly compressed and applied on the chelicerae.

Name

The family name is derived from the type genus '' Cosmetus'', which is from the Greek ''kosmetós'' 'ornate'.

Differential external anatomy

* Eye mound is very low, saddle shaped, placed on middle of cephalothorax, each ocular globe bears a crest of small pointed tubercles or is smooth. Ozopores slit-like, one opening partially covered by tubercle of coxa II. Scutal areas are often indistinct; sometimes the sulci can be distinguished by color pattern or absence of tubercles; scutum and tergites are typically weakly armed. * Genitalia. Penis are standard gonyleptoid and very conservative, with rectangular ventral plate, puffed sac-glans, well-developed thumb-like dorsal process. See more details in Kury & Pinto-da-Rocha (2007).

Distribution

The Cosmetidae are endemic of the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...

. The peak of their diversity is in northern

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

, and

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, where maybe one third to half of species of Opiliones are represented by this single family; they are numerous in Amazonian and Andean realms and also in the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

. They are absent in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

. They also reach southwards as far as

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

and even southern

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

(genus '' Metalibitia''). There are a few species in the

Brazilian Atlantic Forest The Atlantic Forest ( pt, Mata Atlântica) is a South American forest that extends along the Atlantic coast of Brazil from Rio Grande do Norte state in the northeast to Rio Grande do Sul state in the south and inland as far as Paraguay and the ...

, mostly belonging to the genus '' Metavononoides''. A few species now in '' Vonones'' reach far northwards into the USA, where they occur in many of the southern states.

Subtaxa

As of 2006, there are 125 genera and 712 species described. Most species belong to ''

Cynorta ''Cynorta'' is a genus from the subfamily Cosmetinae. The Genus was first described by Carl Ludwig Koch.Cynorta Koch, 1839 in GBIF Secretariat (2019). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org ...

'' (153 spp), ''

Paecilaema ''Paecilaema'' is a genus of harvestmen in the family Cosmetidae. It was first described by Carl Ludwig Koch Carl Ludwig Koch (21 September 1778 – 23 August 1857) was a German entomologist and arachnologist. He was responsible for classify ...

'' (102 spp), '' Flirtea'' and '' Erginulus'' (30 spp each). However, there is no reason to believe most of genera of cosmetids are natural groups, except for a few like '' Metavononoides'', '' Cosmetus'' (Kury, 2003) and '' Roquettea'' (Ferreira & Kury 2010) . Attempts to organize the family in supra-specific units are hindered by the poorly resolved basic taxonomy. The family is currently divided into two subfamilies:

Cosmetinae ''Cosmetinae'' is a subfamily of harvestmen in the family (biology), family Cosmetidae. Genera ''Cosmetinae'' currently contains 116 genera (the following list is incomplete): * ''Flirtea'' * ''Paecilaema'' * ''Rhaucus (genus), Rhaucus'' ...

and Discosomaticinae.

Relationships

Cosmetidae is the sister-group of

Gonyleptidae Gonyleptidae is a neotropical family of harvestmen (Order Opiliones) with more than 800 species, the largest in the Suborder Laniatores and the second largest of the Opiliones as a whole. The largest known harvestmen are gonyleptids. Like most h ...

and both are related to the

Stygnidae The Stygnidae are a family of neotropical harvestmen within the suborder Laniatores. Name The name of the type genus is derived from Ancient Greek ''stygnos'' "diabolic being". (2007): Stygnidae Simon, 1879. In: Pinto-da-Rocha ''et al.'' 2007: 2 ...

and

Cranaidae The Cranaidae are a family of neotropical harvestmen within the suborder Laniatores. Name The name of the type genus is derived from Cranaus, the successor of Cecrops I as king of Attica in Greek mythology. (2007): Cranaidae Roewer, 1913. In: Pi ...

(Kury, 1992).

References

* (2010). A Review of Roquettea, with Description of Three New Brazilian Species and Notes on Gryne (Opiliones,Cosmetidae, Discosomaticinae). ''Zoological Sciences,'', 27: 697 - 708. * (2003). Annotated catalogue of the Laniatores of the New World (Arachnida, Opiliones). '' Revista Ibérica de Aracnología'', vol. especial monográfico, 1: 1-337. * (2007). Cosmetidae Koch, 1839. pp 182–185. In: Pinto-da-Rocha, R., G. Machado & G. Giribet (eds.). Harvestmen: the biology of the Opiliones. Harvard University Press, Cambridge and London. x + 597 pages. {{Taxonbar, from=Q1627249 Harvestman families