 The family comprises three subfamilies of seven genera, and more than 110 species are currently recognised.One subfamily is Heterocleptinae, which has tiny hairs covering its head, thorax, and base of the abdomen and a relatively broad and short pronotum; it comprises two genera, "Heterocleptes" (Villiers), of four species from Africa and Borneo, and "Veliometra" (Andersen), with a single species in the Amazon Basin of Brazil.The second subfamily is Hydrometrinae, with micro- and macro-hairs covering its entire body and the pronotum length being much shorter than the ante-ocular portion of the head.