Caddidae

Caddidae is a family of harvestmen arachnids with 15 known species, the only family of the Eupnoi superfamily Caddoidea.

They have mostly a body length between one and three millimeters.

Distribution

Caddids are widely but discontinuously distributed. In the subfamily Caddinae, Caddella is endemic to southern South Africa, while Caddo is found in eastern North America and Japan with the Kuril Islands. In the other subfamily, Acropsopilioninae, Hesperopilio occurs in western Australia and Chile, Acropsopilio is found in Japan, eastern North America, Central to South America, eastern Australia and New Zealand. Austropsopilio is found in eastern Australia, Tasmania and Chile. This complex pattern suggests that separation occurred in several steps: during the Neogene (eastern North America and Japan); at the beginning or before the Tertiary (South America and Australia), and during the time of Gondwana (Africa and Australia).

Name

The family name is derived from "Caddo", a North American indigenous culture, people and language.