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
Ctenoscia minima
(
Dollfus, 1892
)
(
Figures 6–8
)
Chaetophiloscia dorsalis
Verhoeff, 1928
, p. 137
,
Figures 34
,
37
, 38, syn. nov.
Ctenoscia minima
;
Vandel, 1961
, p. 256
Figure 6.
Ctenoscia minima
from St. 14, ♀: (A) adult specimen, dorsal view; (B) dorsal scaleseta; (C) co-ordinates of noduli laterals; (D) cephalon, dorsal view; (E) cephalon, frontal view; (F) left side of pereon showing disposition of noduli laterales; (G) pereonite 1, left side; (H) pleonites 4, 5, telson and uropods; (I) antennule.
Figure 7.
Ctenoscia minima
from St. 14, ♀: (A) antenna; (B) left mandible; (C) right mandible; (D) maxillule; (E) maxilla; (F) maxilliped.
Figure 8.
Ctenoscia minima
from St. 14, ♂: (A) pereopod 1; (B) pereopod 7; (C) pleopod 1 (specimen 4.5 mm long); (D) genital papilla and pleopod 1 (specimen 4.0 mm long); (E) pleopod 2; (F) pleopod 3 exopod; (G) pleopod 4 exopod; (H) pleopod 5 exopod.
Material examined
2 ♂♂
,
16 ♀♀
,
1 juv.
, St. 8, leg.
S. Taiti
and
C. Rossano
,
28 April 2004
(
MZUF 9464
)
;
4 ♂♂
,
14 ♀♀
, St. 10, leg.
S. Taiti
and
C. Rossano
,
26 April 2004
(
MZUF 9465
)
;
1 ♀
, St. 12, leg.
C. Rossano
,
26 April 2004
(
MZUF 9466
)
;
12 ♂♂
,
20 ♀♀
, St. 14,
Phillyrea
wood, leg.
S. Taiti
,
27 April 2004
(
MZUF 9467
)
; many
♂♂
and
♀♀
, St. 15, sieved ground near stream, leg.
S. Taiti
,
27 April 2004
(
MZUF 9468
)
;
1 ♀
, St. 17, leg.
S. Taiti
,
29 April 2004
(
MZUF 9469
)
;
1 ♀
, St. 18, cork-oak wood, leg.
S. Taiti
,
29 April 2004
(
MZUF 9470
)
;
1 ♂
,
2 ♀♀
, St. 21, leg.
S. Taiti
and
C. Rossano
,
30.IX.2005
(
MZUF 9471
)
;
2 ♀♀
, St. 24, cork-oak wood, leg.
S. Taiti
,
29 April 2004
(
MZUF 9472
)
.
Remarks
Ctenoscia minima
was originally described by
Dollfus (1892)
from
Grenada
,
Spain
, and later recorded for several localities in
Spain
, including the Canary and
Balearic islands
,
Portugal
(see
Schmalfuss 2003
for previous citations), and
Morocco
(
Vandel 1961
). This species has been illustrated by
Vandel (1946)
and
Rodríguez and Barrientos (1993)
. The genus
Ctenoscia
also includes another species,
C. dorsalis
(
Verhoeff, 1928
)
, originally described from San Remo and Grimaldi (
Liguria
,
Italy
), and later recorded from several localities in mainland
Spain
and the
Balearic Islands
,
Corsica
,
Italy
including
Sardinia
and
Sicily
,
Malta
(see
Schmalfuss 2003
for previous citations), and
Tunisia
(
Achouri et al. 2008b
).
According to the descriptions,
C. minima
differs from
C. dorsalis
in having the distal part of the male pleopod 1 endopod bent outwards instead of straight, while all the other characters are identical in the two species. The examination of many specimens of
Ctenoscia
from the Oued Laou valley showed that
C. dorsalis
has to be considered as a junior synonym of
C. minima
. In fact, the distal part of the male pleopod 1 endopod is straight or bent outwards according to the size of the specimens. In the population from St. 14 (Tirinesse),
4 mm
long males show the endopod bent outwards as in
C. minima
(
Figure 8D
), while in
4.5 mm
long males this appendage is straight as in
C. dorsalis
(
Figure 8C
), showing that this character varies according to the age and size of the specimens. For the same reason also the distal margin of the male pleopod 1 exopod is more or less convex.
Ctenoscia minima
is here fully illustrated to facilitate its identification (
Figures 6–8
).
Distribution
Portugal
,
Spain
(including Canary and
Balearic islands
),
Corsica
,
Italy
(including
Sardinia
,
Sicily
and surrounding islands),
Malta
,
Morocco
and
Tunisia
. New record for the Rif region.