Armadillidium album Dollfus, 1887

Cifuentes, Julio, Robla, Jairo & Garcia, Lluc, 2024, Description of Armadillidium boalense sp. nov. from northern Spain, with remarks and a key of the genus in the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic Islands (Isopoda: Oniscidea: Armadillidiidae), Zootaxa 5497 (1), pp. 83-99 : 93

Armadillidium album Dollfus, 1887

Material examined

Spain • 5 specs; Asturias, Gozón, Xagó beach ; 43º36′35.15′′ N, 5º54′50.49′′ W; 1 m a.s.l.; 10 Oct. 2021; J. Robla leg.; hand collected under logs and trunks in the sand, 10–30 m far from the coastline; CLLG. Population first photographed by César Fernández and Rafael González in Mar. 2013 .

Remarks and ecology

Halophilous species well distributed along the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts of Europe and northern Africa. A. album has barely been recorded in the Iberian Peninsula and was only known from Almería ( Cruz 1993), A Coruña (Galicia) and Valencia ( Garcia 2005) and Mallorca (Balearic Islands) ( Garcia et al. 2003) in Spain and several districts of Portugal ( Dias et al. 2005; Gonçalves et al. 2009). Here we provided the first records of A. album for Asturias and expanded the distribution in the north of the Iberian Peninsula ( Fig. 1A, 1D ). Many specimens were located under the trunks and logs at the beginning of the dunar system and from 10 to 30 meters far from the coastline and along the entire beach. Specimens were always found attached to the inner side of the trunks and logs, but also directly on the sand or close to the only plant species present in this area, the marram grass Ammophila arenaria (L.) Link.

Figures

FIGURE 1. A. Distribution of Armadillidium species in Asturias (red, within Spain seen in darker blue). B. Habitat of Armadillidium boalense sp. nov. in Os Chaos (Boal, Asturias). C. A more detailed photograph of the rocky wall where A. boalense sp. nov. specimens were found. D. Distribution of Armadillidium species in the group ‘pictum’ in northern Iberian Peninsula with the provinces with available data of northern Spain in gray. In both maps: New records (★) and bibliographic records (●). A. album (blue), A. assimile (orange), A. boalense sp. nov. (red), A. galiciense (green), A. nasatum (pink), A. pictum (purple), cf. A. pictum (purple?) and A. vulgare (black).