Scoterpes sollmani Lewis

Shear, William A., 2010, 2385, Zootaxa 2385, pp. 1-62 : 45-46

Scoterpes sollmani Lewis

Scoterpes sollmani Lewis 2000, p. 117 . Shear, 2003, p. 7.

Types: Male holotype and male and female paratypes from Binkley Cave , Harrison Co., Indiana, 1.3 mi SSE of Corydon, collected 23 August 1998 by J. J. Lewis and T. P. Sollman ( VMNH) .

Notes: Through the kindness of J. J. Lewis, I examined specimens of this species from the type localities. I found that the material I examined was within the range of variation I accept for Scoterpes copei , which occurs extensively south of the Ohio River in Kentucky and Tennessee. Lewis (2000), in describing the species, focused his diagnosis on the form of the fimbriate branch of the gonopod, but I have found this very complicated feature to be highly variable within copei populations. The Ohio River separates the two, but the karst regions of Indiana are continuous with the Western Pennyroyal karst plateau in Kentucky, and, as mentioned above in the notes on S. copei , specimens of that species from Breckinridge Co., Kentucky, just over the river from Indiana, closely resemble the Indiana specimens. But in view of the strong possibility that S. copei actually represents a complex of cryptic or difficult-to-separate species, I am not placing this name in the synonymy of that species without further data, perhaps derived from comparative DNA studies. There is a good chance that S. sollmani is a name that could be applied to the populations Causey called “copei remotus (see above).”

The species also occurs in BB Hole, 3.25 mi NE Leavenworth, Crawford Co., Indiana .

The southern Indiana karst region is interesting because the terrestrial troglobiotic fauna there has links to the karst regions of Kentucky, across the barrier of the Ohio River (i.e., Hoffman and Lewis 1998; Lewis 2000, 2003, 2005; Shear, Lewis and Farfan, 2007).

Illustrations of S. sollmani are not provided here; they can be found in Lewis (2000).

Maps 5–8. Selected records of Scoterpes species. Map 5. Western Kentucky and north central Tennessee. S. copei , filled squares; S. tombarri , open squares. Map 6. Northeastern Alabama and northwestern Georgia. S. austrinus , open circles; S. nudus , filled circles; S. willreevesi , filled squares. Map 7. Northwestern Alabama and southcental Tennessee. S. stewartpecki , fillled squares; S. syntheticus , open squares; S. alabama , open circles. Map 8. Central Tennessee. S. hesperus , open squares; S. jackdanieli , filled squares; S. musicarustica , open circles; S. tricorner , filled circles.