Nematomorpha from the Philippines, with description of two new species
Author
Schmidt-Rhaesa, Andreas
Author
Schwarz, Christian J.
text
Zootaxa
2016
4158
2
246
260
journal article
10.11646/zootaxa.4158.2.6
ff076df5-cca3-4f47-9e73-cc7f8d200114
1175-5326
266905
E62BCD9D-4686-4E20-83C2-5296E5C30F54
Chordodes caledoniensis
Villot, 1874
(
Figure 7
)
Material
examined.
Two
females from
Central Panay Mountain Range
,
Barangay Maria
Cristina, Madalag
,
Aklan
,
Panay Island
,
Philippines
(
11° 30.827' N
,
122° 11.089' E
), ~
195 m
;
mixed primary and secondary forest; host collected by
G. Operiano
&
J. Jamangal
on
January 31, 2013
.
Both
specimens (
Fig. 7
A) were half emerged from an undescribed
Mantodea
upon preservation of the latter (description of host in preparation by second author).
Specimens
were removed from host for sex determination.
Deposited
in the Zoological Museum
Hamburg
, accession numbers
V13379
and
V13380
.
Description.
One of the two specimens (named here specimen 1) was almost completely wrapped in larval cuticle (
Fig. 7
H), which is torn open in several regions and allows selective views on the structure of the adult cuticle underneath (Fig. I, J). Specimen 2 was almost completely molted, but larval cuticle was still covering parts of the posterior end (
Fig. 7
F). Both specimens are very small, specimen 1 is
65 mm
long and specimen 2 measures
55 mm
. Both have a diameter of
0.5 mm
.
The cuticle contains simple areoles which are irregular in structure, no surface substructure was observed (
Fig. 7
D). Tubercle areoles are present (
Fig. 7
C, D), thorn areoles were not observed. Bulging areoles occur on the cuticle, mostly in pairs (
Fig. 7
D). They carry very short apical bristles (
Fig. 7
D). Clusters composed of two crowned areoles and 8–10 circumcluster areoles are present (
Fig. 7
C, D, E, G, I, J). Crowned areoles have short (about 10 µm) apical filaments (
Fig. 7
C, D) that radiate towards all sides of the areole, which has a central depression on top (
Fig. 7
C, D). Apical filaments can be slightly branched (
Fig.
7
I). The circumcluster areoles resemble the bulging areoles in structure. On both sides along the ventral midline there are crowned areoles with very long (> 70 µm) apical filaments, these crowned areoles appear to have longer and shorter filaments (
Fig. 7
B, E).
Remarks.
The structure of the cuticle corresponds largely to the description of
Chordodes caledoniensis
. This species was described by
Villot (1874)
on the basis of three specimens from New Caledonia.
Dorier (1946)
reinvestigated these specimens and found them to be one male and two females. According to him only one female, the
holotype
, showed the characters for this species.
Only
drawings are available, no photographic or SEM documentation has been given to date.
Nevertheless
, the drawings of the cuticular structure correspond well with what was observed here for the specimens investigated.
Römer
(1896)
and
Camerano
(1897)
synonymized two further species described by
Villot
,
C. sumatrensis
from
Sumatra
, and
C. tuberculatus
from
Australia
, with
C. caledoniensis
.