Terrestrial isopods from the Oued Laou basin, north-eastern Morocco (Crustacea: Oniscidea), with descriptions of two new genera and seven new species
Author
Taiti, Stefano
Istituto per lo Studio degli Ecosistemi, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Florence, Italy;
Author
Rossano, Claudia
Dipartimento di Biologia, University of Florence, Florence, Italy
text
Journal of Natural History
2015
2015-02-28
49
33
2067
2138
journal article
21136
10.1080/00222933.2015.1009512
c5336d61-ecae-4eb6-8592-60f43e587af8
1464-5262
3999869
DCBF3103-1463-4A32-9BC0-A4CFE8B762AE
Lucasius pallidus
(
Budde-Lund, 1885
)
Material examined
5 ♂♂
,
2 ♀♀
,
St.
8, 220 m
, leg.
S. Taiti
and
C. Rossano
,
28 April 2004
(
MZUF 9484
)
;
26 ♂♂
,
18 ♀♀
, 2 juvs, same locality and collectors,
28 September 2005
(
MZUF 9485
)
;
11 ♂♂
,
21 ♀♀
,
St.
25, under stones in meadow, leg.
S. Taiti
,
30 April 2004
(
MZUF 9486
)
;
2 ♀♀
,
St.
26, cork-oak wood, leg.
S. Taiti
,
30 April 2004
(
MZUF 9487
)
.
Distribution
Morocco
, southern
Spain
, southern
France
,
Corsica
, Sardinia and Tuscany. New record for the Rif region.
Remarks
In
Morocco
two species of
Lucasius
have been recorded:
L. myrmecophilus
Kinahan, 1859
, originally described from
Algeria
(
Kinahan 1859
); and
L. pallidus
, originally described from southern
France
, Sicily, southern
Spain
and
Algeria
. In Sicily this species was confused with
Mica tardus
(
Budde-Lund, 1885
) and, according to
Caruso and Di Maio (1996)
, it is not present.
Achouri et al. (2008c)
cite
L. myrmecophilus
from the Oued Laou basin. The specimens from the same area examined by us definitely fit the description of
L. pallidus
, but the differences of this species with
L. myrmecophilus
are still unclear. According to
Vandel (1962)
and
Schmölzer (1965)
L. myrmecophilus
differs from
L. pallidus
in having a smooth instead of granulated dorsum, but in the original description by
Kinahan (1859)
and in the redescription by
Budde-Lund (1885
, p. 135) it is clearly stated that the dorsum of the body is granulated. Therefore there is a possibility that the two species are synonymous, but a re-examination of the
type
material of
L. myrmecophilus
is necessary to confirm this hypothesis.
For diagnostic characters of
L. pallidus
see
Vandel (1962
, p. 651, Figure 321).