Uncertain Position Research Articles

Unrecognized tax benefit and its impact on firms’ financial activities: A longitudinal analysis

AbstractOur study investigates the unrecognized tax benefit (UTB) across firms and its impact on the firm's financial activities using the generalized estimating equations (GEEs). We find the UTB variation across firms is largely related to the firms’ operation characteristics and firms with higher UTB balances are more likely to overstate their uncertain tax positions (UTPs). Also, we find that UTB balances are positively associated with firms’ cash holding and employee stock compensation expenses. Our results provide evidence that UTB has become an important financial disclosure and have affected firms’ financial operations.

Grasping mode analysis and adaptive impedance control for apple harvesting robotic grippers

In order to reduce the mechanical damage caused by apple harvesting robot to apples and realize the non-destructive grasping during the grasping process, an adaptive impedance control strategy for apple harvesting robot compliant grasping is proposed based on the analysis of grasping modes in this paper. Firstly, burgers viscoelastic model is established to describe the rheological characteristics of apples. Then taking the plastic deformation of apples as the damage standard, three types of grasping modes of the gripper for picking apples are compared and analyzed. Finally, in view of the fact that the traditional impedance controller cannot satisfy the grasping force control under the condition of uncertain environmental stiffness and uncertain environmental position, an adaptive controller is designed to adjust the desired position online based on the error between desired force and actual grasping force so that it can track the desired force. Simulation and experiment results show that the adaptive impedance control strategy is more compliant with the actual grasping force, the overshoot and the adjustment time has been significantly improved, which provides a reference for actual apple picking.

The motivated electorate: Voter uncertainty, motivated reasoning, and ideological congruence to parties

This paper investigates the consequences of voter uncertainty on voter–party ideological congruence. Building on the theory of motivated reasoning, it argues that voter feelings about political parties should determine whether they will be attracted or repelled by uncertain policy positions. The empirical analysis demonstrates the following. First, voters employ a ‘likability’ heuristic: they perceive more (less) ideological proximity to the party they (dis)like, regardless of the actual party position. Second, the likability effect boosts as the voter’s uncertainty increases. Facing a party with a vague ideological position, voters who dislike the party exaggerate the ideological distance, whereas those who like the party underestimate this distance. These findings imply that raising voter uncertainty might help the party to the extent that it is liked, but it can backfire if the party is not popular enough. More generally, the results bear important implications for the literature on voter uncertainty and party strategies.

The place of human remains in the frame of cultural heritage: the restitution of medieval skeletons from a Jewish cemetery

• The restitution and reburial of human skeletons from a Medieval Jewish cemetery • Different types of human skeletal remains are differently managed • Uncertain position of human skeletal remains in the frame of cultural heritage • The role of Institutions in the management of the human remains • The need for ethical codes and guidelines in Italy For social, cultural, religious and political reasons the human remains may represent powerful symbols with different meanings that changed over time among the different communities and countries. Thus, they have a sensitive nature that poses them in a “grey area”, still failing in terms of finding an adequate positioning in the research, in the contemporary cultural institutions and museums. Italy still lacks any official guidelines to follow in the case of protests and claims for restitution of human remains. Only recently, Italy experienced for the first time the restitution and reburial of skeletons coming from a medieval Jewish cemetery before the whole anthropological study could be completed. This event re-opens the debate, largely addressed in many Western countries from the 1990s but marginally until now in Italy, of the disputes between the legitimacy of scientific research on human remains and other various instances (ethnicity, religion, public view…). The case study provides the opportunity to propose our reflections on the legal position of human remains and on their fate in the often-contrasting viewpoints between the public and the researches.

The Roles of Penghulu on Small Estate Distribution

Distribution of the estate is one of the most important issues in the human life. The property acquired through the distribution of the estate can lead to an individual’s future. Some people assume that property is used as measure of the success of a person’s life, so there will be room for the disputation in the authority of the estate. The existence of a dispute in the inheritance division takes place in various forms, some of the which caused the inheritance to be divided only after so long as the inherited person died, some also due to the uncertain estate position, and some of the heirs who deliberately committed crucial documents such as death letter, agreement letter and soon. The delay in applying for settlement of the estate after the death of the property owner (deceased) is a common phenomenon occurring in our society. Many cases are not properly addressed by the heirs and have not been resolved immediately even though the death has taken place for several years. There are certain cases which took decades to complete, and even death cases that took place before the Japanese occupation period had not yet been resolved. The community of ours seems to be trivial about the settlement and division of this estate. They seem to be unaware that the postponement in the division creates a very large legal and law. Any estate that left by the deceased should be manage as soon as possible to avoid any other problem that might be occur in the future. There are several applicants who are eligible to apply and manage the estate by the deceased in the Small Estate Distribution Act 1955. Section 8 (1) of the Small Estate Distribution Act provides for the parties who may apply, one of them is head of community or penghulu or placement officer. This paper will discuss the roles of penghulu to assist the community in management of estate, especially unclaimed estate.

Did PCAOB rules on ethics, independence, and tax services influence financial reporting for income taxes?

The PCAOB Rules on Ethics, Independence, and Tax Services prohibited accounting firms from providing aggressive tax-position transactions to their audit clients. We exploit this setting to examine whether the scrutiny of the PCAOB affects companies’ financial reporting for income tax accounts. We find robust evidence that the overall quality of the income tax accrual increased after companies significantly reduced auditor-provided tax service (APTS) fees in response to the regulation. We show that this improvement is a function of companies’ pre-regulation tax aggressiveness. In addition, we find evidence that after the fee reductions, tax-aggressive companies increased financial statement reserves for uncertain income tax positions without changing tax-aggressive decisions. Overall, our findings are consistent with an improvement in the financial reporting for income taxes under regulatory scrutiny which is more pronounced for companies that were tax aggressive in the pre-regulation period.

Comprehensive total evidence phylogeny of chinchillids (Rodentia, Caviomorpha): Cheek teeth anatomy and evolution.

Rodents are the most diverse order of extant mammals, and caviomorph rodents, or New World hystricognaths, have a remarkable morphological disparity and a long fossil record that begins in the Eocene. Chinchilloidea is a poorly understood clade within Caviomorpha, from an evolutionary and phylogenetic perspective. It includes the extant families Chinchillidae and Dinomyidae, the extinct Neoepiblemidae and Cephalomyidae, and several extinct chinchilloids without a clear phylogenetic position, like Eoincamys, Borikenomys, Chambiramys, Ucayalimys, Incamys, Saremmys, Garridomys and Scotamys. The family Chinchillidae includes the extant Chinchilla and Lagidium, grouped in Chinchillinae, and the only living Lagostominae, Lagostomus maximus. Among extinct chinchillids, Eoviscaccia (early Oligocene-early Miocene of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile), Prolagostomus (early-middle Miocene of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile) and Pliolagostomus (early-middle Miocene of Argentina) are the only genera originally described as members of the family. Based on the study of specimens with unworn or little-worn cheek teeth, belonging to extinct and extant taxa, we propose homologies of the cheek teeth structures and perform a combined molecular and morphological phylogenetic analysis including extinct and extant taxa of all families of Chinchilloidea and all genera of Chinchillidae. Our phylogenetic analysis recovered three major lineages in the evolutionary history of Chinchilloidea. The first major lineage is composed of the extant taxa Chinchilla, Lagidium and Lagostomus, and the extinct genera Eoviscaccia, Prolagostomus, Pliolagostomus, Garridomys, Incamys, Loncolicu and Saremmys. Cephalomyid (Banderomys, Cephalomys, Litodontomys, Soriamys) and neoepiblemid (Neoepiblema, Perimys, Phoberomys, Scotamys) genera are part of the second major lineage, while dinomyids such as Dinomys, Drytomomys, Scleromys, 'Scleromys' and Tetrastylus constitute the third major lineage within Chinchilloidea. The phylogenetic position of some taxa previously considered as incertae sedis chinchilloids or without a clear suprageneric group (i.e. Incamys, Saremmys, Garridomys and Loncolicu) show that they belong to pan-Chinchillidae and conform the stem Chinchillidae along with Eoviscaccia. The euhypsodont crown Chinchillidae includes the living subfamilies Chinchillinae and Lagostominae. Dinomyidae and Eoincamys pascuali are recovered as the sisters of a major clade composed by 'Cephalomyidae'+Neopiblemidae and pan-Chinchillidae, and Chambiramys sylvaticus occupies a basal position to the same clade. Four major radiation events are identified in the evolutionary history of Chinchilloidea. The analysis of new morphological characters linked with molecular evidence as well as the addition of taxa of uncertain or unstable phylogenetic position or not considered in previous studies allowed us resolve part of the relationships within Chinchilloidea, particularly that of Chinchillidae, supporting preceding morphological hypotheses.

Orange is the new white: taxonomic revision of Tritonia species (Gastropoda: Nudibranchia) from the Weddell Sea and Bouvet Island

Among nudibranch molluscs, the family Tritoniidae gathers taxa with an uncertain phylogenetic position, such as some species of the genus Tritonia Cuvier, 1798. Currently, 37 valid species belong to this genus and only three of them are found in the Southern Ocean, namely T. challengeriana Bergh, 1884, T. dantarti Ballesteros & Avila, 2006, and T. vorax (Odhner, 1926). In this study, we shed light on the long-term discussed systematics and taxonomy of Antarctic Tritonia species using morpho-anatomical and molecular techniques. Samples from the Weddell Sea and Bouvet Island were dissected and prepared for scanning electron microscopy. The three molecular markers COI, 16S, and H3 were sequenced and analysed through maximum-likelihood and Bayesian methods. The phylogenetic analyses and species delimitation tests clearly distinguished two species, T. challengeriana widely spread in the Southern Ocean and T. dantarti endemic to Bouvet Island. Colouration seems to be an unreliable character to differentiate among species since molecular data revealed both species can either have orange or white colour morphotypes. This variability could be explained by pigment sequestration from the soft coral species they feed on. Morphological analyses reveal differences between Antarctic and Magellanic specimens of T. challengeriana. However, the relationship between T. challengeriana specimens from these two regions remains still unclear due to the lack of molecular data. Therefore, the validity of the T. antarctica Martens & Pfeffer, 1886, exclusively found in Antarctic waters requires further systematic work.

Evolutionary origin and systematic position of Euphorbia normannii (Euphorbiaceae), an intersectional hybrid and local endemic of the Stavropol Heights (Northern Caucasus, Russia)

The Caucasus is one of the richest areas in the world in terms of animal and plant diversity, harbouring 6400 plant species. As a part of the Northern Caucasus, the Stavropol Heights are renowned for their local endemism, highlighted by six species of flowering plants endemic to this area. One of them is the annual species Euphorbia normannii, described in 1891, but with uncertain taxonomic position. We here used nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer and plastid trnT–trnF sequences to infer the phylogenetic position of E. normannii. The nuclear data inferred its position within E. sect. Myrsiniteae, whereas the plastid data placed it within E. sect. Pithyusa, thus indicating a hybrid origin. Relative genome size (RGS) data indicate that E. normannii has the highest RGS compared to three other annual species belonging to both sections (E. aleppica, E. gaillardotii and E. falcata). Our data are inconclusive whether E. normannii is of allopolyploid or homoploid hybrid origin, or whether later hybridisation and plastid capture from E. sect. Pithyusa was responsible for the incongruent phylogenetic signal. Morphologically, E. normannii is distinct, as are all three before-mentioned annuals, which fall in predominately perennial sections. However, the species most similar to E. normannii is E. falcata from E. sect. Pithyusa and therefore we propose inclusion of E. normannii in this section.

Self-Paced Feature Attention Fusion Network for Concealed Object Detection in Millimeter-Wave Image

The active millimeter-wave (AMMW) scanner has been widely used for inspecting human security in public places in recent years owing to its ability to detect all kinds of objects under the clothes and be harmless to the body. However, it is really challenging to detect all concealed objects automatically and accurately due to inherent imaging noise, unknown object kind, and uncertain position. Recently, many existing methods, especially deep learning-based, have achieved good performances on concealed object detection. These methods work well for detecting a few kinds of large objects, but fail to perform on dim and incomplete hard objects. To address this task, a concealed object detection model with self-paced feature attention fusion network (SPFAFN) is proposed in this article. To be specific, the features with different scales are fused in a top-down manner to integrate details and global semantics to better detect small objects. During fusing multi-scale features, a hierarchical pyramid attention mechanism composed of channel and spatial attention is developed to perceive the object. Moreover, boosting self-paced learning is exploited to guide the model to learn hard samples that are difficultly detected. The proposed method is validated on two real-world datasets: an AMMW dataset and a publicly available passive millimeter-wave (PMMW) dataset. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach is superior to the state-of-the-art methods, and achieves better performances on the two datasets with Average Precision (AP).

Advanced Cambrian hydroid fossils (Cnidaria: Hydrozoa) extend the medusozoan evolutionary history.

Primitive cnidarians are crucial for elucidating the early evolution of metazoan body plans and life histories in the late Neoproterozoic and Palaeozoic. The highest complexity of both evolutionary aspects within cnidarians is found in extant hydrozoans. Many colonial hydrozoans coated with chitinous exoskeletons have the potential to form fossils; however, only a few fossils possibly representing hydroids have been reported, which still require scrutiny. Here, we present an exceptionally well-preserved hydroid found in the Upper Cambrian Fengshan Formation in northern China. It was originally interpreted as a problematic graptolite with an uncertain systematic position. Based on three characteristic morphological traits shared with extant hydroids (with paired hydrothecae, regular hydrocaulus internodes and special intrathecal origin pattern of hydrocladium), we propose this fossil hydroid as a new genus, Palaeodiphasia gen. nov., affiliated with the advanced monophyletic hydrozoan clade Macrocolonia typically showing loss of the medusa stage. More Macrocolonia fossils reviewed here indicate that this life strategy of medusa loss has been achieved already as early as the Middle Devonian. The early stratigraphical appearance of such advanced hydroid contrasts with previous molecular hypotheses regarding the timing of medusozoan evolution, and may be indicative for understanding the Ediacaran cnidarian radiation.

Educational Migration Management: ˋˋResponsive University'' Strategy Prospects for Transitive University

This article considers a regional university management model in the light of its uncertain position in the hierarchy of Russian universities and a specific social and economic situation in Russia’s regions. Such uncertainty leads to the decline in popularity of regional universities among high school graduates, increasing outgoing migration from the region. University becomes a transit education zone on the way to further educational mobility to central regions with better educational and career prospects. In order to strengthen the position of a university in the region and enhance its attractiveness for strong applicants, the transformation of university management strategies is needed. The concept of Responsive University has been analyzed as one of the solutions. Methodologically, the given research is based upon the concepts of transitive university and self-organization of complex social systems. Within the framework of the Responsive University concept, a regional university is considered as a self-organizing system, able to quickly respond to both individual and societal demands through internal structural changes and transformations of external links. The transit character of a regional university is viewed as a resource for its transitive transformations aimed at meeting the societal and individual needs in the means and conditions for multi-tiered transits. The research examines the features of continuing education as an organizational condition to meet university students’ demands for educational and professional transits. The research has also analyzed the changes in a regional university management — from vertical configuration to horizontal one through transforming its organizational structure and involving the teaching staff into decision-making process. These transformations in management of a regional university are expected to increase its popularity among high school graduates, attract educational migrants, provide the regional labour market with qualified staff, and reduce migration outflow from the region.
 Keywords: Responsive University, professional and educational transit, educational mobility, university management, transitive university

<p><strong>Morphology of pollen in Apiales (Asterids, Eudicots)</strong></p>

In this monograph, for the first time, the pollen morphology was analysed in the context of modern taxonomic treatment of the order and statistically evaluated in search of traits that could be utilised in further taxonomic and evolutionary studies. Our research included pollen sampled from 417 herbarium specimens representing 158 species belonging to 125 genera distributed among all major lineages of Apiales. The pollen was mechanically isolated, acetolysed, suspended in pure glycerine and mounted on paraffin-sealed slides for light microscopy investigation. Although most of the analysed traits were highly homoplastic and showed significant overlap even between distantly related lineages, we were able to construct a taxonomic key based on characters that bear the strongest phylogenetic signal: P/E ratio, mesocolpium shape observed in polar view and ectocolpus length relative to polar diameter. All the investigated traits are easy to observe with light microscopy and defined by clear and well-documented typology. Early diverging lineages of Apiales constitute a distinct group due to subprolate pollen grains (P/E ratio < 1.25). Among four subfamilies of Apiaceae, Mackinlayoideae can be easily identified based on a combination of traits shared with Klotzschia and Platysace—enigmatic umbllifers with highly uncertain phylogenetic position. Pollen of Azorelloideae is much more diverse but retains many plesiomorphic traits found in early-diverging Apioideae. In contrast, Saniculoideae and most representatives of Apioideae are characterised by evolutionary advanced morphology (perprolate pollen grains with relatively short ectocolpus and bone-shaped outline in colpus view). However, it remains unclear whether similarities between Saniculoideae and higher apioids are an example of convergent evolution or reflect common ancestry. Pollen of Hermas shows a unique combination of traits some of which are typical for Azorelloideae while others resemble Saniculoideae.

Peculiarities of A. I. Herzen’s Historical Autobiographism in From the Other Shore

This article examines one of the most stressful and difficult periods in Herzen’s life associated with the writer’s ideological crisis of the late 1840s, which was reflected in his journalistic works of the 1850s. This research is an attempt to carry out a comprehensive analysis of the book From the Other Shore as an autobiographical text in order to trace the formation of a new concept of the author’s personality and ways to overcome his ideological crisis. The article examines the nature of autobiographism in Herzen’s creative writing of the 1850s, which L. Ya. Ginzburg defined as historical autobiographism. Romantic autobiographism of the 1830s and socio-psychological autobiographism of the 1840s were replaced by historical autobiographism (definition by L. Ginzburg). Issues of historical order become part of the writer’s personal life. Moreover, Herzen personifies the principles of historiosophy: he regards the experience of an individual as the experience of humanity at large. However, Herzen’s uncertain position in European democratic social circles was responsible for the crisis as well. That is why Herzen formulated and chose for himself the position of an outside observer. The method of historical analogies (definition by R. Нestanov) highlights this new view — Herzen compares the events of Europe with the events of the end of Ancient civilization and juxtaposes himself with Roman philosophers. Furthermore, he uses the technique of dramatising the present, and, consequently, history itself, which leads to the effect of double reflection (reflection of reflection or meta-reflection), and helps him distance from the present and overcome the emotional drama of the late 1840s — early 1850s.

Late Cretaceous Flora of the Zyryanka Coal Basin in Northeastern Russia: Composition, Age, and Plant Communities

Plant fossils collected by O.V. Grinenko on the right bank of the Vstrechnaya River in the Zyryanka coal basin (Northeastern Russia) in 1989 have been studied. The Vstrechnaya taphoflora includes 25 species of fossil plants assigned to ferns, cycadaleans, ginkgoaleans, leptostrobaleans, conifers, gymnosperms of an uncertain systematic position, and angiosperms. The presence of advanced conifer taxa and angiosperm plants in the Vstrechnaya taphoflora enables the determination of its age as Late Cretaceous, most probably Turonian and Coniacian. The significant difference between the Vstrechnaya floristic assemblage, as well as the Vstrechnaya flora as a whole, and the Buor-Kemus Formation flora enabled us to regard the plant-bearing sediments as an independent local stratigraphic unit, the Vstrechnaya Formation. The Vstrechnaya taphoflora includes plants that probably formed distinct Mesophytic and Cenophytic plant communities. The composition of the former was inherited from the more ancient, Early Cretaceous, floras of the region; the latter include advanced conifer taxa and angiosperm plants and thus reflect the gradual invasion of the evolutionarily new Late Cretaceous vegetation into the continental interior of Northeastern Asia.

Does the Disclosure of Unrecognized Tax Benefits Affect Investor Uncertainty?

We examine whether the disclosure of tax-related uncertainty through unrecognized tax benefits (UTBs) resolves or exacerbates investors’ uncertainty about firm value based on evidence from investor trading behavior and information asymmetry around the time of the disclosure. We find that current year UTB additions are associated with reduced trading activity around the release of the 10-K and wider bid-ask spreads in the days following the 10-K release. We find no evidence of an association between UTB additions and contemporaneous abnormal returns. Our results suggest that UTB additions increase investor uncertainty and investors impound the information contained in UTBs into prices with a delay. Moreover, we find that our results are concentrated in firms that engage in greater tax avoidance and in firms with poorer financial reporting quality. We also find that the association between UTB additions and information asymmetry is concentrated among firms with low institutional ownership. Taken together, our results suggest that UTB disclosures increase short-term investor uncertainty about future firm value, which undermines the FASB’s goal of increasing the relevance and transparency of accounting for uncertain tax positions.

Apple's Cost Sharing Arrangement: Frankenstein's Monster

This paper performs a forensic analysis of Apple's transfer pricing cost sharing arrangement based on facts and documents that were disclosed in hearings before the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in May 2013 and an investigation of Apple's transfer pricing arrangements by the European Commission between 2013 and 2016 as part of its State Aid investigation, related court filings in Europe and other sources. The paper finds that Apple provided conflicting information to these different investigations and that, when combined, documents from both investigations, when combined with additional research reveal that Apple appears to have violated U.S. transfer pricing laws in 2009 and later years, that should have invalidated its cost sharing arrangement but were apparently not detected by the IRS. These tax violations resulted in U.S. federal tax underpayments that we estimate to be greater than $84 billion. Apple's reserves for Uncertain Tax Positions were $16.5 billion as of September 2020, much less than this amount. The proposed adjustments under the cost sharing periodic adjustment regulations are not limited by any statute of limitations, and appear to be accompoanied by additiional tax violations, including violations of the economic substance doctrine, and the regulations governing the taxation of effectively connected income.

Fighter Equipment Contribution Evaluation Based on Maneuver Decision

With the development of integrated technology and equipment systems, decision-making support has been increasingly applied in equipment research and development, especially in air combat. The development of airborne equipment can significantly improve the confrontation ability of manned fighters. Contribution evaluations restrict decision making in equipment research and development and are important in beyond-visual-range (BVR) air combat, which involves dynamic and uncertain enemy positions. This paper proposes a contribution evaluation model for BVR air combat based on autonomous maneuver decision making; this approach mainly includes a situation evaluation model, a maneuver decision model, and a one-to-one BVR air combat evaluation model. However, such a model includes a high-dimensional state and action space, which require many computations, especially if equipment changes occur. Then, an autonomous maneuver decision algorithm based on the influence diagram method is proposed; this algorithm uses a rolling time domain concept to improve combat fidelity and obtain useful equipment contribution evaluation results. Finally, one-to-one BVR air combat is simulated based on different aircraft models and airborne equipment. The simulation results show that the proposed maneuver decision model and countermeasure evaluation model can help experts quantify the contributions of equipment and provide adequate decision-making support to improve equipment systems.

A molecular perspective on the systematics of the spider crab genus

Libinia, a genus of spider crabs, encompasses 10 valid species, three from the eastern Pacific and seven from the western Atlantic. Previous phylogenetic hypotheses based on molecular and larval morphological data suggested an uncertain position of the genus Libinia within the family Epialtidae. Therefore, we investigated the evolutionary relationships among the species of Libinia, and also suggested a position for this genus within the family. Phylogenetic trees were obtained from concatenated mtDNA sequences of 16S and COI fragments. Molecular dating methods were used to estimate the relative timing of origin and diversification within Libinia. Eighteen new primers were designed, and PCR conditions were standardised to amplify the COI fragments of older or poorly preserved pinned specimens, generating ~550 base pair sequences. Phylogenetic hypotheses supported the monophyly of the genus. Species that occur in the eastern Pacific and the ones found in the western Atlantic do not form monophyletic clades related to this geographical separation. In the eastern Pacific, there is low phylogenetic proximity between Libinia mexicana and L. setosa; and since we did not sample L. peruana, we inferred that it should cluster with L. setosa or L. mexicana due to morphological similarity. Libinia spinosa is separate from the other species, L. mexicana was a sister group of L. cavirostris, and L. ferreirae was closely related to L. dubia and L. rhomboidea, which occur in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Caribbean, respectively. In the Gulf of Mexico, L. dubia and L. emarginata are closely related. Although L. erinacea was not sampled, we suggest, from previous studies, that it should group with L. dubia due to morphological similarities. The phylogenetic hypothesis suggests the monophyly of Libinia, with its origins at the late Eocene. Finally, the recovered clades based on two molecular markers agreed with a parallel, linked morphological study that is still in progress.

Description of the female morphology of the relict troglobiont millipede Cantabrodesmus lorioli Mauriès 1971 (Diplopoda, Polydesmida, Chelodesmidae), and new records in the deepest pit of Spain.

The troglobiont millipede, Cantabrodesmus lorioli Mauriès, 1971, inhabits a few caves in a small region of Northern Spain. It is considered a relict species because of its geographical isolation compared to others in its family, and its to some extent uncertain systematic position. Cantabrodesmus lorioli has been placed in three different families, and now is considered a member of the Chelodesmidae, a family with only one other known native European representative. There are few records of this species, and almost nothing is known about its biology. The only available information on this species is the description of the male and a list of caves where it has been captured. In the present work, we provide the first description of the female morphology, illustrated by scanning electron microscopy, and a series of new records from caves in a region where it had never been captured before, including the deepest known pit in Spain, Torca del Porrón. The female morphology does not show many differences from that of the male, but several characters are discussed. All of the known information on the morphology of the species is used to discuss the implications for its biology and systematic position.