Annals of the Transvaal Museum 
21 
Key to the Genera of South A frican SOLIFUGAE. 
A. Fourth leg with a pair of well-developed terminal tarsal claws. 
These claws are somewhat larger than those on the preceding legs. The 
femora of the legs are all long, much longer than the trochantin. 
a. First leg without tarsal claws 1 . 
a v Tarsus of fourth leg with seven segments, of which the 
basal one is by far the longest, being quite as long as the next four 
segments together, the three penultimate segments being the 
shortest: tarsi of second and third legs with only four segments: 
subungual appendages of the tarsal claws small and not strongly 
divaricating. S. /. Solpuginae. 
Subfamily SOLPUGINAE. 
1 . Tarsus of palp immovably attached to the tibia, which segment becomes 
somewhat narrowed distally and on its inferior surface is armed with numerous 
short truncated bristles and longer pointed ones but no true spines, also in 
the male often with a very distinct scopula of short feathered hairs: coxa of 
palp with an elongated maxillary process projecting anteriorly from the 
ventral border mesially: ocular tubercle bearing a number of stiff bristles or 
weak spines, several pairs of approximately equal size being directed anteriorly 
(in juveniles one pair of forwardly directed spines is noticeably larger than 
the others) : anterior border of head-plate straight and the mesial longitudinal 
groove more or less obsolete in adults : the glabrous area on the mesial surface 
of the basal part of the chelicera bearing a series of parallel stridulatory ridges, 
which however are occasionally absent in adult males : the dental series of the 
upper jaw flanked on the inner surface and sometimes almost hidden by a 
strip of numerous feathered bristles, and parallel thereto but situated at a 
little distance posteriorly is a row of forwardly directed sharp-pointed stout 
spines, usually 7-9 in males, but more numerous in females : dentition of upper 
jaw variable. in the single series, but the lower jaw has always two large teeth 
with one (rarely two or three) intervening small tooth; surfaces of body 
hairy, with stiffer setae on the chelicerae and head-plate; in the male long 
spines often occur on the chelicerae, but never on the tergites: flagellum of 
adult male with a stiff shaft exhibiting great variety in shape, generally 
cylindrical or more or less flattened into a ribbon; this arises from the basal 
enlargement, a hollow closed capsule, usually flat on the mesial side and turgid 
on its external side, and fixed immovably along its base to the upper or 
inner surface of the upper jaw: the walls of the capsule are thickened along the 
dorsal and hind margins, and the cavity is continued as a fine tubule into 
the procurrent portion of the shaft which remains firmly attached to the 
surface of the jaw up to the point where the shaft bends upwards. (Species 
usually of large size.) 
Solpuga Licht. 
2. Similar to Solpuga, but the tibia of the palp in the adult male carries 
a number of stout spines on its inferior surface as well as a scopula, which is 
not large: ocular tubercle armed with two semicircular series of stiff bristles, 
the two largest of which project horizontally forwards. 
Zeriassa Pocock. 
1 According to Kraepelin, rudimentary claws may occur in Gluviopsis. 
