Strigamia engadina ( Verhoeff,1935 )

Bonato, Lucio, Bortolin, Francesca, Zen, Giada De, Decker, Peter, Lindner, E. Norman, Orlando, Marco, Spelda, Jörg & Wesener, Karin Voigtländer and Thomas, 2023, Towards elucidating species diversity of European inland Strigamia (Chilopoda: Geophilomorpha): a first reassessment integrating multiple lines of evidence, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 199 (4), pp. 945-966 : 961

Strigamia engadina ( Verhoeff,1935)

Diagnosis of adult individuals: Up to 5 cm long or longer; clypeal setae uniformly spaced in a continuous row; forcipular tergite 40–50% of the head length; forcipules relatively broad and liưle separated from each other (distance between the basal condyles <1.8 times the basal width of the forcipules); forcipular tibia with a distinct projection; tarsungulum elongate,> 80% of the distance between the basal forcipular condyles, with the outlines of the intermediate part (i.e, basal part of the ungulum) sub-parallel; forcipular denticle relatively short (usually 40–55% of the tarsungulum length) and its outlines distinctly curved; around 51–55 leg pairs, 53–55 in females and 51–53 in males; metasternites of the anterior one-third of the trunk without a distinct mid-longitudinal sclerotized stripe; each coxopleuron with relatively few coxal pores in proportion to body size, no more than 15 pores in individuals ≤ 25 mm long, and no more than 25 pores in longer individuals; coxal pores relatively large in proportion to body size, diameter of the largest pore> 4% of the head width, about as wide as their canals.

Geographical range: The species is apparently limited to a small area in the Central Alps, between the Bergamasque Prealps and the Western and Southern Rhaetian Alps ( Fig. 7 ).

Published records from other areas (Pyrenees, remaining Alps, central Apennines, Dinarides, Carpathians and other areas in the Balkan Peninsula) are certainly or probably based on misidentifications of the candidate species S. microdon (see above) or other species (e.g. Matic and Dărăbantzu 1971, Matic 1975). We revised some of these records by re-examining the voucher specimens. The few other published records need confirmation because they are almost invariantly from within the known range of S. microdon and, when reporting S. engadina from a composite sample of specimens from this area, authors assigned other specimens to S. crassipes or to S. transsilvanica , but not to S. acuminata ( Marcuzzi and Minelli 1971, Matic and Dărăbantzu 1971, Minelli 1979). Moreover, the record from the Carpathian Mountains based on the type material of Scolioplanes engadinus rodnaensis ( Verhoeff, 1935) also needs confirmation, because the liưle reported morphological information on the single specimen is not enough to confirm its species identity.

Candidate species: There is no evidence of multiple species.

Figures

Figure 7. Geographical distribution of the Strigamia carniolensis species complex and the species Strigamia engadina within the study area, based on direct examination of specimens and critically revised published records.