As with several other species of the genus Pantopsalis, the male chelicerae have two morphs or forms, long and short.

[4] He used a specimen collected in Seventy Mile Bush, in the southern Wairarapa between Norsewood and Dannevirke.

The second individual he saw waved its chelicerae threateningly at him, and Colenso says "I, bearing in mind our small blackish katipo spider, was on my guard; perhaps too much so."

[4] In 2000 Cor Vink transferred Phalangium cheliferoides to the genus Pantopsalis after examining Colenso's holotype specimen, now held in Canterbury Museum.

[5] However, in 2004 the arachnologist Christopher K. Taylor declared this name nomen dubium because the holotype specimen was in such poor condition.