Disparrhopalites patrizii (Cassagnau and Delamare, 1953)

Fanciulli, Pietro Paolo, Caruso, Domenico & Dallai, Romano, 2006, On some Collembola from a Sicily cave, with the description of a new species of Serroderus Delamare, 1948 (Collembola, Cyphoderidae), Journal of Natural History 40 (19 - 20), pp. 1241-1251 : 1243

Disparrhopalites patrizii (Cassagnau and Delamare, 1953)

Material. Numerous individuals found in different sites of the cave.

Disparrhopalites patrizii is a troglophilic species with a southwestern European distribution ( Bretfeld 1999). It has been collected both in open ( Dallai 1973; Schleuter 1985) and cave habitats ( Dallai and Malatesta 1982; Christian 1998; Bretfeld 1999). For many years the genus was believed to be monospecific with only one species ( D. patrizii ) ( Dallai 1970); however, a new species, D. tergestinus was recently described by Fanciulli et al. (2005), from a cave near Trieste (NE Italy). The two species can be easily separated from each other by means of some characters such as: the eye patch, that is absent in D. tergestinus , and is present with eight ocelli in D. patrizii ; the number of the subarticles of antennomere IV, that consists of 14 in D. tergestinus but only 12 in D. patrizii ; the shape of the hindfoot complex provided with an untoothed claw in D. tergestinus and a toothed claw in D. patrizii .