The gizzard contents of 57 pipits and 64 skylarks collected from December 1973 to April 1976 at Huiarua Station, Tokomaru Bay are described. Pipits fed mostly on invertebrates; in only nine percent of the gizzards did the volume of seeds exceed that of invertebrates. Adult Coleoptera, Hymenoptera and Diptera occurred in 77%, 67% and 63% of the gizzards respectively while adult insects of three ...

Understanding animal terrestrialization, the process through which animals colonized the land, is crucial to clarify extant biodiversity and biological adaptation. Arthropoda (insects, spiders, centipedes and their allies) represent the largest majority of terrestrial biodiversity. Here we implemented a molecular palaeobiological approach, merging molecular and fossil evidence, to elucidate the...

Baltic amber eupnoid and dyspnoid types (Arachnida: Opiliones) in the Berendt collection are redescribed from their repository in the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin. Type specimens of Caddo dentipalpis (Koch & Berendt, 1854), Dicranopalpus ramiger (Koch & Berendt, 1854), Nemastoma (?) incertum Koch & Berendt, 1854, Mitostoma (?) denticulatum (Koch & Berendt, 1854) and Histricostoma (?) tubercula...

Camel spiders (Arachnida: Solifugae) are one of the arachnid groups characterised by a prosomal dorsal shield composed of three distinct elements: the pro-, mesoand metapeltidium. These are associated respectively with prosomal appendages one to four, five, and six. What is less well known, although noted in the historical literature, is that the coxae of the 4th and 5th prosomal segments (i.e....

To date, only morphological and anatomical descriptions of microwhip scorpions (Arachnida: Palpigradi) have been published. This very rare group is enigmatic not only in its relationships to other arachnids, but especially due to the fact that these animals dwell only underground (in caves, soil, and interstitial spaces). We observed the curious feeding habit of the microwhip scorpion Eukoeneni...

The Seychelles islands are located in the Indian Ocean, some 1,500 kilometres east of Africa and northeast of the island of Madagascar. They are particularly interesting from a biogeographical perspective, with ancient affinities to Africa and Asia, recent colonizing species from the Indo-Pacific and modern introductions. Until recently, relatively little was known about the biodiversity of the...

Two new species of the genus Piaroa Villarreal, Tourinho & Giupponi, 2008, P. escalerete sp. nov. and P. bacata sp. nov. are described from Valle del Cauca, and Cundinamarca departments, Colombia, respectively. The female flagellum is fully illustrated for a Piaroa species for the first time; the generic diagnosis is also emended and the relationships of the new species with those previously de...

Most spiders are content to sit and wait for unsuspecting victims to blunder into their silken traps, but webs are only ever as good as the structures that secure them to the surfaces that support them. ‘This [attachment] is done with a special type of silk, called piriform’, says Jonas Wolff, from Macquarie University, Australia, adding that most spiders only produce this silk when they need t...

BACKGROUND The endemic and threatened troglobites (organisms restricted to caves) Charinus eleonorae (Amblypygi) and Iandumoema uai (Opiliones), both from Olhos d'Água cave, located at Peruaçu Caves National Park (southeast Brazil), have their distribution expanded for a new locality inside of the National Park (Lapa do Cipó cave), extending their distribution at least in 9.5km(2). NEW INFORM...

A catalogue of the Opiliones types of the "Instituto Butantan", São Paulo, Brazil is given, surveying the collection after severe fire damaged in 2010. Of a total of 91 species with type material listed for the collection, 69 could be located, and 22 are considered lost. The species are arranged according to their families and genera. The collection of Salvador de Toledo Piza Jr., housed at the...