The Cranaidae are a family of

neotropical The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In biogeogra ...

harvestmen The Opiliones (formerly Phalangida) are an Order (biology), order of arachnids, Common name, colloquially known as harvestmen, harvesters, harvest spiders, or daddy longlegs (see below). , over 6,650 species of harvestmen have been discovered w ...

within the suborder

Laniatores Laniatores is the largest suborder of the arachnid order Opiliones with over 4,200 described species worldwide. The majority of the species are highly dependent on humid environments and usually correlated with tropical and temperate forest habit ...

Name

The name of the type genus is derived from

Cranaus In Greek mythology, Cranaus or Kranaos (;Ancient Greek: Κραναός) was the second Kings of Athens, King of Athens, succeeding Cecrops I, Cecrops I. Family Cranaus married Pedias, a Spartan woman and daughter of Mynes (mythology), Mynes, with ...

, the successor of

Cecrops I Cecrops (; ; , ) was a legendary king of Attica which derived from him its name Cecropia, according to the Parian Chronicle having previously borne the name of Acte or Actice (from Actaeus). He was the founder and the first king of Athens itsel ...

as king of

Attica Attica (, ''Attikḗ'' (Ancient Greek) or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the entire Athens metropolitan area, which consists of the city of Athens, the capital city, capital of Greece and the core cit ...

Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

. (2007): Cranaidae Roewer, 1913. In: Pinto-da-Rocha ''et al.'' 2007: 185ff

Description

Body length ranges from about six to sixteen millimeters. The color normally ranges from brown to black greenish, with the legs sometimes lighter to yellowish. Some species feature white stripes on some regions.

Distribution

Most species are found in northern

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

, with few species found in

Panama Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Latin America at the southern end of Central America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and ...

and

Costa Rica Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America. It borders Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, as well as Maritime bo ...

. The diversity of the family is probably explained by the diversity of habitats in the

cloud forest A cloud forest, also called a water forest, primas forest, or tropical montane cloud forest, is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, Montane forest, montane, Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, moist forest characteri ...

s of

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

and

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

, ranging from elevations of 500 to 3,500 m. Some species were even collected from elevations as high as 5,000 meters.

Relationships

The four subfamilies constituting the Cranaidae were transferred from

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 ...

by Kury (1994), erecting it as a sister group to

Cosmetidae 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 endemic of the New World with a Nearctic-Neotropical distribution where a large fraction of the dive ...

and Gonyleptidae. Cranainae and Stygnocranainae are probably closely related.Kury 1994

Subfamilies

See the List of Cranaidae species for a list of currently described species. * Cranainae —

French Guiana French Guiana, or Guyane in French, is an Overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France located on the northern coast of South America in the Guianas and the West Indies. Bordered by Suriname to the west ...

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama,

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

, Costa Rica,

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger, more populous island of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, the country. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is the southernmost island in ...

and Venezuela (56 genera, 121 species) * Heterocranainae — Ecuador, Colombia (1 genus, 2 species) * Prostygninae — Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia (16 genera, 18 species) * Stygnicranainae — Ecuador, Colombia (3 genera, 6 species)

Footnotes

References

* Joel Hallan's Biology Catalog
Cranaidae
* (1994): The genus ''Yania'' and other presumed Tricommatidae from South American highlands (Opiliones, Cranaidae, Prostygninae). ''Rev. Arachnol.'' 10: 137-145. * (eds.) (2007): Harvestmen - The Biology of Opiliones. ''Harvard University Press'' . * (2010) : New familial assignments for three species of Neotropical harvestmen based on cladistic analysis (Arachnida: Opiliones: Laniatores). ''Zootaxa'', 2241: 33–46. * (2012) : First report of the male of ''Zamora granulata'' Roewer, 1928, with implications on the higher taxonomy of the Zamorinae Kury, 1997 (Opiliones, Laniatores, Cranaidae). ''Zootaxa'', 3546: 29–42. {{Taxonbar, from=Q3002107 Harvestman families