Galapagos Species Database
The Galapagos Species Database shares the information about the species from our Natural History Collections.
Oligotoma saundersii
embiopteros
Males were first found at lights at night in Puerto Ayora in 1991; colonies were found in silken webs in litter of forests on farms at Bellavista, and large webs with pronounced silken tunnels were on tree trunks and branches in arid zone vegetation along paths at the Darwin Station in 1999; March-June. This species originated in India and has been spread widely through the tropics and subtropics by commerce.
Domain
Eukaryota
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Arthropoda
Class
Insecta
Order
Embioptera
Family
Oligotomidae
Genus
Oligotoma
Species
saundersii
Taxon category: Accepted
Origin: Introduced - established
Year of first record: 1991
Mode of introduction: Accidental
Introduction Pathway: Contaminant
Subpathway: Contaminant on plants (inc. seeds and plant associated material)
Introduced status: Naturalized
Invasive status: Unlikely to become invasive
Map of specimen collection localities or observation records for this species in our collections database.
Distribution: Santa Cruz
- Peck, S.B. (1996) Diversity and distribution of the orthopteroid insects of the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador. Canadian Journal of Zoology 74: 1497-1510.
- Peck, S.B. Heraty, J., Landry, B. & Sinclair, B.J. (1998) Introduced insect fauna of an oceanic archipelago: The Galápagos Islands, Ecuador. Am. Entomol. 44: 218-237.
- Peck, S.B. (2001) Smaller Orders of Insects of the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador: Evolution, Ecology, and Diversity. NRC Research Press, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 278 pp.
You are welcome to download and use the information found in this page, acknowledging its source.
This page should be cited as follows:
"Galapagos Species Database, Oligotoma saundersii", dataZone. Charles Darwin Foundation, https://datazone.darwinfoundation.org/en/checklist/?species=6719. Accessed 2 November 2026.