''Cryptozoa'' is the collective name for small animals who live in darkness and under conditions of high relative humidity, as in the wet soil underneath rocks, decomposing tree bark etc. Examples include

pseudoscorpion Pseudoscorpions, also known as false scorpions or book scorpions, are small, scorpion-like arachnids belonging to the order Pseudoscorpiones, also known as Pseudoscorpionida or Chelonethida. Pseudoscorpions are generally beneficial to humans sin ...

slug Slug, or land slug, is a common name for any apparently shell-less terrestrial gastropod mollusc. The word ''slug'' is also often used as part of the common name of any gastropod mollusc that has no shell, a very reduced shell, or only a smal ...

centipede Centipedes (from New Latin , "hundred", and Latin , " foot") are predatory arthropods belonging to the class Chilopoda (Ancient Greek , ''kheilos'', lip, and New Latin suffix , "foot", describing the forcipules) of the subphylum Myriapoda, an ...

s and

earwig Earwigs make up the insect order Dermaptera. With about 2,000 species in 12 families, they are one of the smaller insect orders. Earwigs have characteristic cerci, a pair of forcep-like pincers on their abdomen, and membranous wings folded ...

s. The habitat of the cryptozoa allows avoidance of fluctuations of temperature and humidity, which makes the contained range of considerably different species quite remarkable. Moreover, cryptozoa are notable for their inclusion of often unnamed varieties of organisms. The term "cryptozoic fauna" was originally coined by

Arthur Dendy Arthur Dendy (20 January 1865, in Manchester – 24 March 1925, in London) was an English zoologist known for his work on marine sponges and the terrestrial invertebrates of Victoria, Australia, notably including the "living fossil" '' Peripatus'' ...

Habitat

Sometimes referred to as the cryptozoic niche, the habitat allowing for cryptozoic life is characterized by a shielding of exterior light sources, with stable and cool temperature and high humidity. Forest humus and leaf litter can provide the necessary conditions for cryptozoic life in part because of the shielding from surrounding trees. Nonetheless, temperate woodlands are not the only ground for such a habitat: the tropics and the desert are often suitable for cryptozoa, such as

scorpion Scorpions are predatory arachnids of the order Scorpiones. They have eight legs, and are easily recognized by a pair of grasping pincers and a narrow, segmented tail, often carried in a characteristic forward curve over the back and always end ...

s or

Solifugae Solifugae is an order of animals in the class Arachnida known variously as camel spiders, wind scorpions, sun spiders, or solifuges. The order includes more than 1,000 described species in about 147 genera. Despite the common names, they are ne ...

Examples

Examples of the cryptozoa include land-planarians,

amphipods Amphipoda is an order of malacostracan crustaceans with no carapace and generally with laterally compressed bodies. Amphipods range in size from and are mostly detritivores or scavengers. There are more than 9,900 amphipod species so far descri ...

, pill-woodlice,

s, pill-millipedes,

thysanura Thysanura is the now deprecated name of what was, for over a century, recognised as an order in the class Insecta. The two constituent groups within the former order, the Archaeognatha (jumping bristletails) and the Zygentoma (silverfish and fireb ...

ns, false-scorpions and

oribatid mites Oribatida (formerly Cryptostigmata), also known as oribatid mites, moss mites or beetle mites, are an order of mites, in the "chewing Acariformes" clade Sarcoptiformes. They range in size from . There are currently 12,000 species that have been ...

References

{{Reflist Zoology