Megaphyllum (Megaphyllum) hercul es (Verhoeff, 1901)

Vagalinski, Boyan & Golovatch, Sergei I., 2021, The millipede tribe Brachyiulini in the Caucasus (Diplopoda, Julida, Julidae), ZooKeys 1058, pp. 1-127 : 1

Megaphyllum (Megaphyllum) hercul es (Verhoeff, 1901)

Brachyiulus (Chromatoiulus) unilineatus hercules Verhoeff, 1901: 97-98, figs 18-20.

Brachyiulus unilineatus hercules : Lignau 1903: 127, 55.

Chromatoiulus unilineatus hercules : Lang 1959: 1791.

Chromatoiulus unilineatus hercules : Kobakhidze 1965: 394.

Megaphyllum hercules : Lazányi and Vagalinski 2013: 82-84, fig. 15a-g; Kokhia and Golovatch 2018: 40; 2020: 206.

Diagnosis.

Differs from its only congener known from the Caucasus, M. (s. str.) spathulatum (Lohmander, 1936), mainly by the colour pattern: body uniformly dark with an orange to dark red mid-dorsal line, vs. body with a light yellow to ochre dorsum divided by a black axial line in M. spathulatum ; and by the promere having mostly parallel side margins, ending with a flat apex, vs. the same significantly tapering all the way to a narrowly rounded apex in M. spathulatum .

Records from the Caucasus.

Russia: Environs of Novorossiysk ( Lignau 1903); Georgia: AR Abkhazia, Pitsunda ( Issajev 1911).

General distribution.

Central and southwestern parts of the Balkan Peninsula, northwestern Caucasus.

Remarks.

Apart from the records from the Caucasus region, Lignau (1903) and Issajev (1911) both mentioned that M. hercules was rather common across the Crimean Peninsula, and although neither of them documented those reports with gonopod drawings, the very characteristic habitus of this species alone makes misidentification very unlikely: it has a dark grey to blackish body with an orange to dark red axial line, while the other two congeners occurring at the northeastern Black Sea coast, M. spathulatum (Lohmander, 1936) and M. tauricum ( Attems 1907), are both characterised by a black axial line on a light yellow to ochre ( Megaphyllum spathulatum ) or brown-grey ( Megaphyllum tauricum ) dorsum. Also bearing in mind the disjunct Balkan-Caucasian distribution of Byzantorhopalum rossicum (see Vagalinski and Lázanyi 2018), as well as the Crimean endemic M. tauricum , a very close sibling of the Balkan M. rhodopinum (Verhoeff, 1928), M. hercules may be another example of this pattern, the lack of more recent samples from the Caucasus being due to its rarity in the region.