Clinopodes verhoeffi, Bonato, Iorio & Minelli, 2011

Bonato, Lucio, Iorio, Étienne & Minelli, Alessandro, 2011, The centipede genus Clinopodes C. L. Koch, 1847 (Chilopoda, Geophilomorpha, Geophilidae): reassessment of species diversity and distribution, with a new species from the Maritime Alps (France), Zoosystema 33 (2), pp. 175-205 : 192

Clinopodes verhoeffi n. nom.

TYPE MATERIAL AND TYPE LOCALITY. — 2 ♀♀, syntypes ; from “Kirjat Anawim” = (Kiryat Anavim [ Israel]) ( Verhoeff, 1934a, under Geophilus flavidus porosus ).

SYNONYMS. — Geophilus flavidus porosus Verhoeff, 1934 (see below).

NOMINAL SUBSPECIES. — None.

MAIN REFERENCES. — Verhoeff 1934a: 10 (original description, in key, of Geophilus flavidus porosus );

Dărăbanţu & Matic 1969: 102 (in key, as Clinopodes porosus ); Matic 1972a: 76 (in key); 83 (redescription, as Clinopodes porosus ).

MATERIAL EXAMINED. — Romania. Casa de Piatra, Bihor Mountains, 10.VIII.2007, G. Gardini & R. Rizzerio lg, 1 ♀ (35 mm long, 61 leg pairs) (coll. MB).

DIAGNOSIS. — A Clinopodes species up to c. 5 cm long; 59-65 pairs of legs; denticles of the forcipular coxosternite variously from wider than long to as long as wide; chitin-lines reaching the condyles; even the largest sternal pore-fields on the posterior leg-bearing segments remaining well behind the mid-length of the metasternite; almost all canals of the coxal organs converging into3 or 4 poorly recognizable clusters aligned along the lateral margin of the metasternite and usually covered by it; additionally, a single small pore on the ventro-lateral side of each coxopleuron, far apart from all the other pores and lateral to them. See also Table 3 and key to species.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION. — Originally described from the Levant and also recorded from north-western Anatolia and the Carpathians. A single record as “ Clinopodes flavidus forma porosus ” from a locality in the central part of the Italian Peninsula ( Marcuzzi 1968) is not accompanied by supporting evidence and has been disregarded by all subsequent authors.

TAXONOMIC AND NOMENCLATURAL NOTES

The species was originally described by Verhoeff (1934a) as Geophilus (Clinopodes) flavidus porosus . It was first raised to the species rank, in the genus Clinopodes , by Attems (1947), who however suspected that it could be identical to C. trebevicensis (a synonym of C. carinthiacus ; see above). Some subsequent authors maintained it as a valid species and identified other specimens (Dărăbanţu & Matic 1969; Matic 1970, 1972a), but others ignored it, though not questioning its validity explicitly. It is maintained here as a distinct species after the direct examination of a specimen matching the putative diagnostic characters given in the literature ( Table 3).

Geophilus flavidus porosus Verhoeff, 1934 is a primary junior homonym of Geophilus porosus Porat, 1894 (a nominal species of uncertain identity, but obviously unrelated to Clinopodes ; Fahlander 1937). Conditions for reversal of precedence between homonyms ( ICZN 1999: art. 23.9) do not occur, because G. porosus Porat, 1894 has been used as a valid name even after 1899 ( Fahlander 1937) and G. flavidus porosus Verhoeff, 1934 has been used as valid in the preceding 50 years in considerably less than 25 publications and by less than 10 different authors. Moreover, G. porosus Porat, 1894 has been cited under Geophilus even by Attems (1903) and therefore the two taxa have been treated as congeneric even after 1899 ( ICZN 1999: art. 23.9.5). As a consequence, the name G. flavidus porosus Verhoeff, 1934 must be rejected ( ICZN 1999: art. 60) and, lacking any synonym, it is replaced here by Clinopodes verhoeffi (n. nom.), from the name of the author of the junior homonym.