Szeptyckitheca peteri (Palacios-Vargas, Vazquez & Cuellar , 2003) Bellini & Oliveira & Weiner & Nunes & Medeiros, 2023

Bellini, Bruno Cavalcante, Oliveira, Mariana Fernandes De, Weiner, Wanda Maria, Nunes, Rudy Camilo & Medeiros, Gleyce Da Silva, 2023, Revisiting Szeptyckitheca Betsch & Weiner (Collembola, Symphypleona, Sminthuridae): new species, updated diagnoses, and a key, ZooKeys 1186, pp. 139-174 : 139

Szeptyckitheca peteri (Palacios-Vargas, Vazquez & Cuellar, 2003) comb. nov.

Sphyrotheca peteri Palacios-Vargas, Vázquez & Cuéllar, 2003: 298-302, figs 1-3, Mexico, Quintana Roo, Reserva de la Biosfera de Sian Ka’na (orig. descr.).

Diagnosis.

Males pale bluish, with purple or blue spots on antennae, dorsal head, dorsal trunk and furca, females yellowish, with brown spots with the same distribution of males. Ant. IV with nine or ten subsegments, with some proximal chaetae capitate; Ant. II with 12 chaetae, two of them clearly longer than the others. Eyepatches with one interocular chaeta each. Head vertex with a total of 16 large and rough spines, two of them unpaired; unpaired chaeta A1 absent; secondarily reduced chaetae near the spines present. Trochanters I-III with 1,1,1 spines respectively, trochanter II spine knobbed and III blunt; trochanter III with five regular chaetae other than the spine. Ungues with a single inner tooth, with tunica and strong pseudonychia; unguiculus I with the internal tooth; unguiculus III filament thin and surpassing the tip of the unguis III. Large abdomen with capitate chaetae. Female with a long subanal appendage (surpassing the ventral anal valves), spatulated, apically serrated on both faces. Dens ventral chaetotaxy formula from the apex to the base as: 3,2 … 1, dorsal chaetotaxy with 17 chaetae; mucronal notch discrete (adapted from Palacios-Vargas et al. 2003).

Remarks.

Sphyrotheca peteri is herein transferred to Szeptyckitheca due to the presence of robust and somewhat erect spines on the head vertex and dorsal large abdomen, presence of three transversal rows of dental ventral chaetae and presence of spines on all trochanters, all features originally listed by Betsch and Weiner (2009) as diagnostic of Szeptyckitheca .

Habitat.

Specimens were found in low flooded jungle ( Palacios-Vargas et al. 2003).

Known distribution.

Mexico ( Palacios-Vargas et al. 2003).