Troglophilus neglectus, : POPOV & CHOBANOV, 2004

Karaman, Ivo, Hammouti, Nasera, Pavićević, Dragan, Kiefer, Andreas, Horvatović, Mladen & Seitz, Alfred, 2011, The genus Troglophilus Krauss, 1879 (Orthoptera: Rhaphidophoridae) in the west Balkans, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 163 (4), pp. 1035-1063 : 1039-1042

T. NEGLECTUS: POPOV & CHOBANOV, 2004

Material examined: See Appendix.

Diagnosis: Small to medium sized species. Male body length ranges between 11–18 mm; females, 13–18 mm. Body colour dark brown to light brown marbled. The male tenth tergite with wide, partially square, medial protrusion distally divided by a central depression in two triangularly shaped lobes ( Fig. 3A–C ). Posterior edge of the lobes slightly undulating. The female tenth abdominal tergite with two paramedial tooth form protrusions, variable in form from slightly noticeable ( Fig. 3F ) to very pronounced and wide ( Fig. 3D ).The titillator almost triangular in shape, distally widely obtuse ( Fig. 4F ). In lateral view, slender, distally slightly voluminous. The ovipositor short and wide, length ranges between 7.5– 10 mm; the widest point is in its proximal third ( Fig. 12G ), ventral margin almost straight.

Distribution: This taxon appears with disjunct distribution in three regions ( Fig. 5 ). It is widely distributed in montane and submontane parts of western Serbia, eastern Bosnia, and northern parts of Montenegro. A remote local population occurs in the region of Rhodopes in Bulgaria. Unfortunately, it was not possible for us to carry out a morphological study of this population, so only a genetic analysis on legs kindly sent to us by our colleague D. Čobanov (Sofia) was performed. An isolated population from eastern Macedonia (Plačkovica Mt.) showed a large genetic distance ( HT 3) from the other populations of T. brevicauda .

Remarks: This species was originally described by Chopard (1934), based on a single female specimen from a cave in the village of Bjeloševina (now in Montenegro). Later on, Chopard (1940) cited the type series of this species, with the female holotype and two adult males and one juvenile female. It remains unexplained as to why he did not present the characteristics of the males in his description. As the description is very featureless in most parts and without any illustrations, this led some authors to interpret it differently. Thus, in papers of Karaman (1958) and Us (1970), some specimens of T. cavicola were treated as T. brevicauda . The probable reason for this is the specimen of a subadult female of T. cavicola from locus typicus (collected in the same time as the type specimen of T. brevicauda ), and which Z. Karaman received from the National Museum of Natural History in Paris as T. brevicauda (now in the collection of I. Karaman). It can be justly supposed that this is the same specimen that Chopard (1940) cited for the type series. Z. Karaman (1958) treated this specimen as T. brevicauda , as well as the specimens of T. cavicola from a locality in western Serbia, where males had somewhat more distinct protrusions of the tenth tergite. Chopard’s undisputed authority should not be ignored in this misunderstanding.

Unfortunately, we also did not have the opportunity to analyse the type specimen, as it was not found in the museum in Paris (L. Desutter, pers. comm.). The status of this species is additionally complicated by the uncertain location of the type locality. Even in Pljevlja, the closest larger settlement, in northern Montenegro, not many people have heard of a very small and remote village of Bjeloševina. We have been very lucky to find the village and the cave and to collect specimens of two Troglophilus species there. One was T. cavicola and the other was a species that was well described by Maran (1958) as T. neglectus serbicus . The similar sympatric appearance of these two, the only Troglophilus taxa in the wider region of that part of Montenegro and Serbia is common. The dilemma we had was which species of the mentioned two is the synonym of T. brevicauda . Two points in the description of T. brevicauda brought us to the conclusion that it is T. neglectus serbicus . The length of the ovipositor in the description completely matches the length of the ovipositor of T. neglectus serbicus , whereas it is much longer in T. cavicola . Although this character can vary, we have never found specimens of T. cavicola with the ovipositor of similar length as in holotype of T. brevicauda . Another detail is the description of the margin of the tenth tergite, which could be treated as the T. cavicola type. However, the observation of truncated apical margin ‘ 10 e tergite abdominal un peu tronqué á l’apex, á angles arrondis ’ ( Chopard, 1934) resembles greatly the anatomy of tergites we see in some populations of T. neglectus serbicus from western Serbia ( Fig. 2F ). Unfortunately, we have not found females at the type locality. The margin of the tenth tergite in females of T. cavicola is always in the form of a shallow concave cavity ( Fig. 12B ). This all led us to the conclusion that T. brevicauda is a valid species and that T. neglectus serbicus is its junior synonym.

Figures

Figure 2. Bayesian inference for the Troglophilus species tree based on the analysis of the 16S sequences. Posterior probability values are shown above the branches when they are> 0.5. Bootstrap values (2000 pseudoreplicates) given by neighbour joining (NJ) and maximum parsimony (MP) are presented below the branches when they are>50% (NJ/MP).

Figure 3. A–F, Troglophilus brevicauda, tenth tergite, dorsal view: A, male 15 mm (Bjeloševina, Montenegro); B, male 16.5 mm (Plačkovica, Macedonia); C, male 14 mm (Olovo, Bosnia); D, female 15 mm (Olovo, Bosnia); E, female 14 mm (Dērekare, Serbia); F, female 16 mm (Petnica, Serbia).

Figure 4. A–E, Troglophilus zorae sp. nov., paratypes: A, male 16 mm, tenth tergite, dorsal view (Mlečnik, Macedonia); B, male 19.5 mm, tenth tergite, dorsal view (Matka, Macedonia); C, female 15.5 mm, tenth tergite, dorsal view (Mlečnik, Macedonia); D, female 18 mm, tenth tergite, dorsal view (Matka, Macedonia); E, male 19.5 mm, phallus with titillator (arrow), dorsal view (Matka, Macedonia). F, Troglophilus brevicauda, male 15 mm, phallus with titillator (arrow), dorsal view (Olovo, Bosnia).

Figure 5. The geographical distribution of Troglophilus brevicauda (circles) and Troglophilus zorae sp. nov. (triangles) (square – literature data). (SLO-Slovenia; CRO-Croatia; BIH-Bosnia and Herzegovina; SRB-Serbia; MNE-Montenegro; BUL-Bulgaria; ALB-Albania; MK-Macedonia; GRE-Greece).

Figure 12. A–C, Troglophilus cavicola: A, male 18 mm, tenth tergite, dorsal view (Bjeloševina, Montenegro); B, female 18.5 mm, tenth tergite, dorsal view (Bukovik, Macedonia); C, male 18 mm, phallus with titillator (arrow), lateral view (Bjeloševina, Montenegro). D–I ovipositor, lateral view: D, Troglophilus lazaropolensis, female 16.5 mm (Lazaropole, Macedonia); E, Troglophilus cavicola, female 18.5 mm (Bjeloševina, Montenegro); F, Troglophilus zorae sp. nov., paratype female 18 mm (Matka, Macedonia); G, Troglophilus brevicauda, female 15 mm (Olovo, Bosnia); H, Troglophilus ovuliformis, female 19.5 mm (D. Seoca, Montenegro); I, Troglophilus neglectus, female 15 mm (N. Breznica, Macedonia).