Subfamily Merophysiinae Seidlitz, 1872

Members of this subfamily are small, ranging from one to three millimetres, and are defined by (1) absence of adult cephalic corpotentorium, (2) adult labial palpomere 2 oval or inflated, and (3) absence of larval stemmata (Tomaszewska 2010). Recent molecular studies support the monophyly of this subfamily (Robertson et al. 2015). Shockley et al. (2009b) gave the more recent generic classification within Merophysiinae, comprising 12 genera and more than 100 species, with the greatest species diversity in the Old World. Nevertheless, Rücker (2018, 2020) maintains the view that this subfamily should be regarded as a family.