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 bi ...

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

within the suborder

Laniatores Laniatores is the largest suborder of the arachnid order Opiliones with over 4,000 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 King of Athens, succeeding Cecrops I. Family Cranaus married Pedias, a Spartan woman and daughter of Mynes, with whom he had three daughters: Cranaë, Cra ...

, the successor of

Cecrops I Cecrops (; grc, Κέκροψ, ''Kékrops''; ''gen''.: Κέκροπος) was a mythical king of Attica which derived from him its name Cecropia, having previously borne the name of Acte or Actice (from Actaeus). He was the founder and the first k ...

as king of

Attica Attica ( el, Αττική, Ancient Greek ''Attikḗ'' or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the city of Athens, the capital of Greece and its countryside. It is a peninsula projecting into the Aegean Se ...

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities of ...

. (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 relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the souther ...

, with few species found in

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Co ...

and Costa Rica. 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 (TMCF), is a generally tropical or subtropical, evergreen, montane, moist forest characterized by a persistent, frequent or seasonal low-level cloud ...

s of

Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar language, Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechuan ...

and Colombia, 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 ...

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 distributed from Argentina to the southern USA with the highest diversity in northern South Ameri ...

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 ; french: link=no, Guyane ; gcr, label=French Guianese Creole, Lagwiyann ) is an overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic ...

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...

, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama,

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 ...

, Costa Rica,

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

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