Henicops Africana, 1140

Enghoff, Henrik, Akkari, Nesrine & Pedersen, Jan, 2013, Aliquid novi ex Africa? Lamyctes africanus (Porath, 1871) found in Europe (Chilopoda: Lithobiomorpha: Henicopidae), Journal of Natural History 47 (31 - 32), pp. 2071-2094 : 2080-2081

Henicops Africana : Porat (1894: 10).

Material examined

Four ♂♂, 4 ♀♀, 2 broken specimens of unknown sex, Cameroon 1891, Y. Sjöstedt leg. ( NHRS-JONI 00000060 ) .

Descriptive notes

Body length maximum 7 mm (8–9 mm according to Porat, 1894). Posterior legs missing in all specimens. Presence of distal spinose projection of tibia on 12th leg confirmed. Coxosternal profile as in Figure 2A . Number of antennal articles: 25 in all 17 unbroken antennae.

Remarks

Apart from the smaller size and the remarkably constant lower number of antennal articles, these specimens agree fully with the Danish specimens identified as L. africanus (with reservation for the missing posterior legs).

One might ask why we regard the Île St Paul specimens (with mostly 25–27 antennal articles and same body size as the Danish specimens) as conspecific with the Danish ones, while questioning the identity of the Cameroon specimens (25 articles, slightly smaller body size). This is admittedly a subjective decision but in any case, in the light of the missing posterior legs of the Cameroon specimens, we think that the question mark is warranted.

Figures

Figure 2. Lamyctes africanus (A–C, E) and Lamyctes emarginatus (D), specimens from Denmark. Forcipules and forcipular coxosternite (A); details of forcipular coxosternite (B, D); posterior end of female (C); antenna (E). Scale bars 0.1 mm (A, C, E), 0.01 mm (B, D).