Anoplodesmus anthracinus Pocock, 1895

Golovatch, Sergei & Stoev, Pavel, 2013, The millipede family Paradoxosomatidae in the Philippines, with a description of Eustrongylosomapenevi sp. n., and notes on Anoplodesmusanthracinus Pocock, 1895, recorded in Malaysia and Sri Lanka for the first time (Diplopoda, Polydesmida), Biodiversity Data Journal 1, pp. 957-957 : 957

Anoplodesmus anthracinus Pocock, 1895

Materials

Occurrence: recordedBy: P. Stoev & L. Penev; individualCount: 1; sex: male; behavior: copulation observed; Location: higherGeography: Malay Peninsula; country: Malaysia; stateProvince: State Pulau Penang; verbatimLocality: Station MARDI Seberang Perai; locationRemarks: agriculture area, in close proximity to experimental rice fields, under wooden board; verbatimLatitude: 5°32'24''N; verbatimLongitude: 100°28'11''E; Event: eventDate: 15 June 2011; Record Level: institutionCode: NMNHS Occurrence: recordedBy: P. Stoev & L. Penev; individualCount: 2; sex: females; behavior: copulation observed; Location: higherGeography: Malay Peninsula; country: Malaysia; stateProvince: State Pulau Penang; verbatimLocality: Station MARDI Seberang Perai; locationRemarks: agriculture area, in close proximity to experimental rice fields, under wooden board; verbatimLatitude: 5°32'24''N; verbatimLongitude: 100°28'11''E; Event: eventDate: 15 June 2011; Record Level: institutionCode: NMNHS Occurrence: recordedBy: I. Melnik; individualCount: 1; sex: male; Location: country: Sri Lanka; stateProvince: Sabaragamuwa Prov.; verbatimLocality: Millenium Foundation Orphanage; verbatimElevation: 90 m; verbatimLatitude: 7°16'40"N; verbatimLongitude: 80°23'12"E; Event: eventDate: 19-22.XII.2012; Record Level: institutionCode: ZMUM Occurrence: recordedBy: I. Melnik; individualCount: 2; sex: females; Location: country: Sri Lanka; stateProvince: Sabaragamuwa Prov.; verbatimLocality: Millenium Foundation Orphanage; verbatimElevation: 90 m; verbatimLatitude: 7°16'40"N; verbatimLongitude: 80°23'12"E; Event: eventDate: 19-22.XII.2012; Record Level: institutionCode: ZMUM

Description

Length ca 33 mm, width of pro- and metazona 2.8 and 3.8 mm, respectively (♂), or 25, 3.0 and 4.0 mm, respectively (♀). Colour pattern highly vivid (Fig. 5), shiny blackish to dark brown, with contrasting yellowish paraterga and the immediately adjacent regions. Paraterga very well-developed, set rather high (about 1/4th of midbody height) (Fig. 6a), callus wide (Fig. 6b), thicker in pore-bearing paraterga. Pleurosternal carinae longitudinally arched ribs, increasingly poorly developed towards telson to totally disappear in segment 15. Legs only slightly enlarged in male, rather long and slender, about 1.3 (♂) or 0.9 (♀) times as long as midbody height. ♂ legs 5 (Fig. 7a) and 6 with large femoral humps, ♂ femur 7 with a humped process even greater than in leg 6 (Fig. 7b). Epiproct subtruncate (Fig. 6c). Hypoproct roundly subtrapeziform (Fig. 6d). Sternal lamina between ♂ coxae 4 semi-circular (Fig. 6e).

Gonopods very simple (Fig. 6f): coxite with a few strong setae distodorsally, prefemoral part prominent, only slightly shorter than acropodite; femorite with a strong ventral tooth (a), solenophore bipartite, with two apical lobes (b, c), lobe c supporting a short solenomere (sl).

Notes

This species was originally described from Yangon (= Rangoon), Myanmar ( Pocock 1895). Attems (1937) synonymized it with Jonespeltis splendidus Verhoeff, 1936, from southern India, but Jeekel (1965) revalidated the latter species and returned A. anthracinus to its original scope. Furthermore, Jeekel provided very useful illustrations and a detailed redescription of the species, based on a part of the type series. Hoffman (1973) gave more illustrations of the gonopods, based on a paratype of A. kathanus (Chamberlin, 1921), from Katha, north of Yangon, Myanmar, and synonymized it with A. anthracinus .

Our record of A. anthracinus in the State of Pulau Penang, Malaysia considerably extends the range of this species to the south. The studied sample agrees well with the description provided by Jeekel (1965) and Hoffman (1973) in most characters (Figs 6f, 7), including humps in ♂ femora 5 and 6, as well as a process surmounting a hump in ♂ femur 7. Only slight variations have been noticed in the shapes of paraterga and sternal lobe between ♂ coxae 4. The same can be said about the samples from Sri Lanka which are also identified as A. anthracinus .

These are the first formal records of the species in Malaysia and Sri Lanka (Figs 8, 10). However, actually they might well represent introductions. In fact, in Malaysia the species was observed and collected in a highly agricultural and urbanized area, in close proximity to experimental rice fields (Fig. 9), while in Sri Lanka, the collecting locality is a human settlement.

It is noteworthy that Sri Lanka hosts several formal species of Anoplodesmus , nearly all very similar to one another:

Anoplodesmus saussurii (Humbert, 1865), originally described from Sri Lanka, later recorded also in Fiji and Mauritius ( Jeekel 1965, Jeekel 1972, Jeekel 1980a). The only meaningful difference from A. anthracinus is said to lie in the absence of a ventral hump in ♂ femur 5. However, given considerable variation in the presence or absence of this character, when such a hump in A. anthracinus can either be present in or absent from ♂ femur 4 ( Attems 1937, Jeekel 1965), its status versus the older name A. saussurii is to be questioned.

Anoplodesmus luctuosus (Peters, 1864), from Rambodde; A. inornatus (Humbert, 1865), A. layardi (Humbert, 1865), A. thwaitesii (Humbert, 1865) and A. humberti (Carl, 1902), all from Paradeniya; and A. sabulosus Attems, 1898, from Kandy. All of them have been described from Sri Lanka, still known only from that island. Some of these taxa are however dubious, being based on female or even juvenile material, but most could be included into a key ( Jeekel 1965). Regrettably, the first couplet in the key is purely geographic, separating the species from Myanmar and Sumatra from those described from Sri Lanka and India ( Jeekel 1965). As one can see from the presently known distributions of A. saussurii and A. anthracinus , this distinction does not hold, also strongly suggesting several introductions through human agency. The only feasible solution lies in collecting new and/or spotting topotypic museum samples of the still enigmatic A. inornatus and A. layardi from Paradeniya, and of A. sabulosus from Kandy, to properly compare them to their type material. In addition, bar-coding could help tracing genetic relationships. Last, but not least, a few congeneric species, most of which also very similar to A. anthracinus , are known to occur in southern India as well.

Since Anoplodesmus is a senior synonym of Paranedyopus ( Golovatch 2000, Golovatch 2013), the sole erstwhile component species of the latter genus from Sri Lanka, A. simplex (Humbert, 1865), from Pundaloya ( Jeekel 1980c), must be considered as well. However, like any former Paranedyopus species, A. simplex shows reduced paraterga and more elaborate gonopods ( Golovatch 2013). In other words, A. simplex is quite distinct from the above congeners from Sri Lanka which all have strongly developed paraterga and highly simple gonopods. In contrast, it seems to be more similar to A. rufocinctus (Carl, 1932) and A. subcylindricus (Carl, 1932), both latter taxa from southern India ( Jeekel 1980c).

Anoplodesmus anthracinus , new to the fauna of Sri Lanka.