SRA

The Opiliones superfamily Triaenonychoidea currently includes two families, the monogeneric New Zealand-endemic Synthetonychiidae Forster, 1954 and Triaenonychidae Sorensen, 1886, a diverse family distributed mostly throughout the temperate Gondwanan terranes, with 110 genera and around 440 species currently described. Traditionally, Triaenonychidae has been divided into subfamilies diagnosed by very few morphological characters largely derived from the troublesome Roewerian system of morphology, and classifications based on this system led to many complications. Recent research within Triaenonychoidea using morphology and traditional multi-locus data has shown multiple deeply divergent lineages, non-monophyly of Triaenonychidae, and non-monophyly of subfamilies, necessitating a revision based on phylogenomic data. We used sequence capture of ultraconserved elements across 164 samples to create a 50 percent taxon occupancy matrix with 704 loci. Using phylogenomic and morphological examinations, we explored family level relationships within Triaenonychoidea including describing two new families, genera, and species. With our dataset we also explored phylogenomic relationships within Triaenonychidae with an extensive taxon set including samples representing about 80 percent of the genus-level diversity. Based on our results we discuss systematics of this family including the historical use of subfamilies, reassessment of morphology in context of our phylogeny, hypothesized placement for all unsampled genera, highlight lineages most in need of taxonomic revision, and provide an updated species level checklist. Aside from describing new taxa, our study provides the phylogenomic context necessary for future evolutionary and systematic research across this diverse lineage.