Taxonomy
Phylogenetic tree showing evolutionary relationships among nassophoreans and phyllopharyngeans. Pseudomicrothorax is a microthoracid. For further details see Gong et al. (2009).
In modern classification schemes, Pseudomicrothorax is included in the Microthoracida, one of three orders in the class Nassophorea (Lynn, 2008). This class derives its name from the French 'nasse', meaning basket, and the Greek 'phoros', meaning to bear.
In a recent study it was found that the class Nassophorea is not monophyletic and one of its orders - Synhymeniida - was transferred to the class Phyllopharyngea. As a result, the refined class Nassophorea now contains only two orders: Nassulida and Microthoracida (Gong et al., 2009).
It is possible that future studies will reveal that Microthoracida is more closely related to the Phyllophryngea than to Nassulida. If this proves to be the case it will be necessary to remove Microthoracida (and Pseudomicrothorax) from the class Nassophorea.
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Related species
Find out about the two other Pseudomicrothorax species.