For decades, Travunioidea and Triaenonychoidea have been historically regarded as a single unit, called Travunioidea (e.g., Martens 1980). Kury (2003) resurrected the name Insidiatores Loman 1900 to collectively refer to them, but subsequent authors failed to recover the monophyly of Insidiatores (Giribet and Kury 2007) and even of the component families (Sharma and Giribet 2011).

Both morphological (Mendes 2009) and molecular (Giribet et al. 2010,  Sharma and Giribet 2011) phylogenetic analyses found that the Palearctic “Triaenonychidae” group with expanded Travuniidae and Travunioidea. Kury (2013)  following results of Mendes (2009) fused Briggsidae and Cladonychiidae with Travuniidae, which is also supported by Giribet et al. (2010) and Sharma and Giribet (2011). Herein we adopt this scheme of classification, and downgrade Briggsidae and Cladonychiidae to subfamilies of Travuniidae further. Mendes (2009) found that the Triaenonychoidea sensu stricto are sister to Grassatores, not to Travunioidea, in contrast with Giribet and collaborators, who found Triaenonychidae as sister group of Travunioidea. Giribet et al. 2010 and Sharma and Giribet 2011 found Synthetonychiidae as the sister group to all other Laniatores, but this placement is not incorporated here.

The North American monotypic Fumontana Shear, 1977 is probably closely related to the southern triaenonychids, although its exact positioning in the family is still unknown (Giribet and Kury 2007, Thomas and Hedin 2008, Mendes 2009). It is currently the only representative of Triaenonychoidea from the Northern Hemisphere. The only analysis with broader representation of Insidiatores (Mendes 2009) found Fumontana closer to Triaenonyx Sørensen, 1886 than to Soerensenella Pocock, 1902, Triaenobunus Sørensen, 1886 and Adaeum Karsch, 1880 hence we consider this species here as a member of the subfamily Triaenonychinae.

According to the results of Mendes (2009), Trojanella serbica Karaman, 2005, currently considered a Travunioidea incertae sedis (Karaman 2005), groups with the European travunioids, forming a clade with Travunia Absolon, 1920, and based on those results we newly assign this species to Travuniidae, subfamily Travuniinae. Mendes also included Picunchenops spelaeus Maury, 1988 in her analyses. Originally this species was placed by Maury (1988) in Triaenonychinae, but not to any of its tribes (which roughly corresponds to subfamilies). In her results, Mendes found that this species is closer to Triaenonyx and other triaenonychines, thus we consider herein this species as a Triaenonychidae, subfamily Triaenonychinae (or in Maury's terms, Triaenonychini).

We provide additional nomenclatural considerations in the section "Additional information".

In the last years, some work has been done with North American Travunioidea. Shear (2008) synonymized a species of Cladonychiidae, Phalangomma virginicum Roewer, 1949 (originally assigned to Phalangodidae) with the travuniid Erebomaster weyerensis (Packard, 1888). Shear and Derkarabetian (2008) redefined Paranonychinae based on characters of the penis and proposed the synonymy of Kaolinonychinae as its junior synonym.  Derkarabetian et al. (2011) and Derkarabetian and Hedin (2014) have been studying the sclerobunines using modern integrative taxonomy to detect morphological homogeneous undescribed species, synonymies and the evolution of troglomorphisms (Derkarabetian et al. 2011, Derkarabetian and Hedin 2014). Most recent published work on Triaenonychoidea is only cursory and on Afrotropical taxa (e.g., Mendes and Kury 2012), while Australasian and Neotropical members are neglected of late.

1. Cladonychiinae originally in Triaenonychidae (Hadži 1935), elevated to family by Cokendolpher (1985) by synonymizing Cladonychiinae with Erebomastridae). Both Cladonychiidae and Briggsidae were fused with Travuniidae by Kury (2013) (See Introduction: Placement and composition). In this paper we downgrade them to subfamilies of Travuniidae: Briggsinae, Cladonychiinae. New familial assignment.
2. Forster (1954) synonymized Nuncia ovata Roewer, 1915 with Triaenonyx cockayni Hogg, 1920, which he considered as a subspecies of Nuncia coriacea (Pocock, 1902). But he overlooked the fact that ovata is senior to cockayni (although junior of coriacea) and inverted the precedence. This is corrected here, through the new combination Nuncia coriacea ovata Roewer, 1915. Author name should not be within parentheses because it is combined within the same genus, although in a different subspecific arrangement.
3. Forster (1954) changed the name of Neonuncia enderbei (Hogg, 1909) to Neonuncia enderbyi, better to conform with the spelling of the island name. But this is an incorrect subsequent spelling according to ICZN (32.5.1. – "Incorrect transliteration or latinization, or use of an inappropriate connecting vowel, are not to be considered inadvertent errors."), and the original spelling by Hogg should be conserved.
4. Kury and Mendes (2007) detected that some genera published by Roewer (1935) did not meet ICZN conditions for availability. However, this is not true for Peltonychia. Kury & Mendes saw only the heading of this genus, treated by Roewer in page 55, but they overlooked one nomenclatural act buried amidst the introductory text of Roewer, much earlier in the text. On page 12, Roewer explicitly stated: “Damit ist dieses Tier in die Familie der Travuniidae zu verweisen, und wir bezeichnen es mit Peltonychia leprieuri (LUCAS) als Genotypus dieser Gattung...” Therefore, Scotolemon leprieurii Lucas, 1861 was explicitly designated as type of Peltonychia and this genus was already available in Roewer (1935) being the valid senior synonym of Hadziana, contra Kury and Mendes (2007). As a result, all eight species combined under Hadziana are here combined under Peltonychia, restoring the combinations used by Martens (1978).
5. ICZN article 13.3 states “To be available, every new genus-group name published after 1930 (except those proposed for collective groups or ichnotaxa) must, in addition to satisfying the provisions of Article 13.1, be accompanied by the fixation of a type species in the original publication [Art. 68] or be expressly proposed as a new replacement name (nomen novum) [Art. 67.8].” Seven generic names published by Lawrence between 1931 and 1933 include more than one species and did not originally have designation of a genus type. All of them only became available in Staręga’s catalogue (Staręga 1992), when he designated a type species for each. They are listed below:

Larifugella Staręga, 1992

Larifugella Lawrence 1933: 226 [unavailable name, ICZN 13.3].

Larifugella Staręga 1992: 279 [type species: Larifugella afra Lawrence, 1933, by original designation].

Austromontia Staręga, 1992

Austromontia Lawrence 1931: 398 [unavailable name, ICZN 13.3].

Austromontia Staręga 1992: 282 [type species: Austromontia silvatica Lawrence, 1931, by original designation].

Biacumontia Staręga, 1992

Biacumontia Lawrence 1931: 403 [unavailable name, ICZN 13.3].

Biacumontia Staręga 1992: 283 [type species: Biacumontia paucidens Lawrence, 1931, by original designation].

Graemontia Staręga, 1992

Graemontia Lawrence 1931: 413; Kauri 1961: 101; [unavailable name, ICZN 13.3].

Graemontia Staręga 1992: 285; Kury 2006: 45 (key to species; distribution map) [type species: Graemontia bifidens Lawrence, 1931, by original designation].

Mensamontia Staręga, 1992

Mensamontia Lawrence 1931: 381 [unavailable name, ICZN 13.3].

Mensamontia Staręga 1992: 286 [type species: Mensamontia morulifera Lawrence, 1931, by original designation].

Monomontia Staręga, 1992

Monomontia Lawrence 1931: 416; Lawrence 1933: 222 [unavailable name, ICZN 13.3].

Monomontia Staręga 1992: 287 [type species: Monomontia atra Lawrence, 1931, by original designation].

Rostromontia Staręga, 1992

Rostromontia Lawrence 1931: 388; Kauri 1961: 100  [unavailable name, ICZN 13.3].

Rostromontia Staręga 1992: 288 [type species: Rostromontia truncata Lawrence, 1931, by original designation].