Cryptops (Trigonocryptops) bottegii Silvestri, 1897

Simaiakis, Stylianos Michail & Edgecombe, Gregory D., 2013, Scolopendromorph centipedes (Chilopoda: Scolopendromorpha) in the Natural History Museum (London): A review of the hitherto unidentified species collected in Africa, with remarks on taxonomy and distribution, and a new species of Otostigmus (Parotostigmus), Zootaxa 3734 (2), pp. 169-198 : 171

1. Cryptops (Trigonocryptops) bottegii Silvestri, 1897

Material examined. Sokotra Isl. : Kischen, September 1917, 3 exx., BMNH?. ( Fig. 2 ) .

Type locality. Somalia (between Matagoi and Lugh) ( Minelli et al. 2006) .

General distribution. East Tropical Africa: Tanzania ( TZ); Northeast Tropical Africa: Sokotra Isl. ( YE) (new region record), Somalia (SO) ( Minelli et al. 2006).

Remarks. The largest of the three specimens in the sample from Sokotra is just 17 mm long, compared to material used in previous descriptions (38 mm: Kraepelin 1903; 45 mm: Silvestri 1897; 60 mm: Attems 1910). The NHM specimens have relatively few marginal setae on the coxosternal margin (4+4, 5+5, 6+5 setae) and have fewer saw teeth on the ultimate leg (9 or 10 teeth on the tibia, three on tarsus 1) than in larger specimens from Somilia or Tanzania. Attems (1930) summarized the latter as having 15–16 teeth on the tibia and three, five or six on tarsus 1. The former count is based on the largest known specimen ( Attems 1910), and we attribute the difference to ontogeny; the 27 mm long specimen on which Ribaut (1914) based a subspecies from Kenya, C. (T.) bottegii kenyae, resembles the Sokotra specimens in having 6+6 setae on the coxosternal margin and three saw teeth on tarsus 1. The Sokotra specimens show the distal spinose processes on the inner side of the ultimate leg prefemur, outer side of the femur, and both sides of the tibia noted in other material, as well as complete paramedian sutures on the head and TT1–20.

Although the Sokotra Archipelago ( Yemen) is the largest and biologically most diverse island group in the Arabian Region ( Van Damme and Banfield 2011), in terms of biodiversity the island of Sokotra is mainly influenced by East Africa, being situated about 100 km east of the Horn of Africa.

Figures

FIGURE 2. Cryptops (Trigonocryptops) bottegii, C. (T.) gigas, Alipes appendiculatus, A. calcipes and A. grandidieri, distribution records of specimens from Africa housed in the NHM collection.