Subfamily Spiriniinae Chitwood, 1936

Type genus

Spirinia Gerlach, 1963 (synonym: Spira Bastian, 1865).

Diagnosis (from Decraemer & Smol 2006)

Member of Desmodoridae . Body cuticle with fine annulations. Head not demarcated as a cephalic capsule. Amphideal fovea usually a simple spiral. Buccal cavity small or large, with a distinct or a minute dorsal tooth; two small ventrosublateral teeth may be present or absent.

Differential diagnosis

This subfamily is similar to the Desmodorinae but can be differentiated from the latter by the absence of a head capsule.

Remarks

The tribe Spirinacea was originally established by Chitwood (1936), before being raised to subfamily, family and superfamily rank by De Coninck (1965). According to the Principle of Coordination (ICZN, 1999, Article 36), “a name established for a taxon at any rank in the family group is deemed to have been simultaneously established for nominal taxa at all other ranks in the family group; (…). The name has the same authorship and date at every rank.” The appropriate authorship for Spiriniinae should therefore be attributed to Chitwood (1936), and not Gerlach & Murphy (1965), as is often done (e.g., Armenteros et al. 2014).

Valid genera (Cavalcanti et al. 2009; Armenteros et al. 2014)

Alaimonema Cobb, 1920

Chromaspirina Filipjev, 1918

Metachromadora Filipjev, 1918

Onyx Cobb, 1891

Papillonema Verschelde et al., 1995

Paradesmodora Schuurmans Stekhoven, 1950

Parallelocoilas Boucher, 1975

Perspiria Wieser & Hopper, 1967

Polysigma Cobb, 1920

Pseudometachromadora Timm, 1952

Sigmophoranema Hope & Murphy, 1972

Spirinia Gerlach, 1963

Spirodesma Cavalcanti et al., 2009

Stygodesmodora Blome, 1982

We provide emended diagnoses and updated lists of valid species for Chromaspirina, Spirinia, and Perspiria below to clarify the distinctions between them. These lists are based on the original and any subsequent descriptions; as many of the original descriptions (especially early ones) lack type material, we often had to rely on short descriptions and/or illustrations.