New species of subterranean and endogean terrestrial isopods (Crustacea, Oniscidea) from Tuscany (central Italy)
Author
Taiti, Stefano
Author
Montesanto, Giuseppe
text
Zoosystema
2018
2018-06-05
40
11
197
226
journal article
10.5252/zoosystema2018v40a11
19cf9485-c4c2-4bf1-a834-f13dfcfc50e1
1638-9387
3741502
urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:E8AFD7E7-4FDD-408E-BB77-75E61F2BF22F
Genus
Alloschizidium
Verhoeff, 1919
TYPE
SPECIES. —
Armadillidium pruvoti
Racovitza, 1907
by monotypy.
REMARKS
Schmalfuss (2008)
pointed out that all the genera of
Armadillidiidae
possessing a schisma on the pereonite 1 (
Eluma
Budde-Lund, 1885
,
Ballodillium
Vandel, 1961
, and
Alloschizidium
) fall within his definition of the genus
Schizidium
Verhoeff, 1901
. However, he was not certain that all these genera belong to a monophyletic group and the presence of the schisma might be due to convergence. Therefore, he kept
Schizidium
as a separate genus distributed from
Greece
to
Iran
. The genus
Alloschizidium
appears to be very similar to
Paraschizidium
, with a possible synapomorphic character for these two genera being the subovoidal, instead of spherical, shape of the ball when the animals roll up (see also discussion in
Taiti & Ferrara 1996
). Then, the autapomorphic characters for
Alloschizidium
compared with
Paraschizidium
is the presence of the schisma. As remarked by
Schmalfuss (2008)
a molecular investigation might help to clarify the interrelationships among all the above mentioned genera.