Rev 11/05/2024
Taxonomic postion of Alloionematidae is uncertain; pangrolaimid like except for female gonad; De Ley and Blaxter (2004) placed the family in the superfamily Strongyloidoidea.
Small family of three genera (as of 2017). Juvenile forms of Alloionema and Neoalloionema are parasites of slugs; juvenile stages of Rhabditophanes are insect associates and their adults presumably bacerivores in soil. The genus Alloionema Schneider, 1859 has only one species: A. appendiculatum Schneider, 1859; the genus Rhabditophanes Fuchs, 1930 has four species: R. schneideri (Bütschli, 1873) Goodey, 1953, R. cobbi Hnatewytsch, 1929, R. aphodii (Sachs, 1950) Baker, 1962 and R. insolitus Fuchs, 1930; and the genus Neoalloionema Ivanova, Luc & Spiridonov, 2016 has two species, N. indicum Nermuť, Půža & Mráček, 2016.and N. tricaudatum Ivanova, Luc & Spiridonov, 2016. (Nermut et al., 2016).
Key to genera (from Andrassy, 2005)
1. Six lips, metastom portion of stoma with several setose dorsal teeth
Alloionema Schneider, 1859
2.
Four lips, metastom without teeth
Rhabditophanes Fuchs, 1930
Chitwood, B.G. and McIntosh. 1934. A new variety of Alloionema (Nematoda: Diplogasteridae) with a note on the genus. Proc. Helm Soc, Wash 1.37-38.
De Ley, P. and Blaxter. M. 2004. A new system for Nematoda: combining morphological characters with molecular trees, and translating clades into ranks and taxa. Nematology Monographs and Perspectives, 2004: 633-653.
Nermuť, J., Vladimír Půža and Zdeněk Mráček. 2016. Neoalloionema indicum n. sp. (Nematoda: Alloionematidae), a new alloionematid from India. Nematology 16:949-962.
Pieterse, A., Malan, A.P., Ross, J.L. 2016. Nematodes that associate with terrestrial molluscs as definitive hosts, including Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita (Rhabditida: Rhabditidae) and its development as a biological molluscicide. J. Helminthology 91:517-527.