Clinopodes caucasicus ( Selivanov, 1884 ) Bonato & Iorio & Minelli, 2011

Bonato, Lucio, Iorio, Étienne & Minelli, Alessandro, 2011, The centipede genus Clinopodes C. L. Koch, 1847 (Chilopoda, Geophilomorpha, Geophilidae): reassessment of species diversity and distribution, with a new species from the Maritime Alps (France), Zoosystema 33 (2), pp. 175-205 : 183-186

Clinopodes caucasicus ( Selivanov, 1884) n. comb.

TYPE MATERIAL AND TYPE LOCALITIES. — 4 ♀♀ and 9 ơơ, syntypes ; from “Kakhetia” (= Kakheti [ Georgia]), “Gudaur” (= Gudaur [ Georgia]), “Lars” (= Lars [ Georgia]), and “Nukha” (= Shaki [ Azerbaijan]) ( Selivanov 1884) .

SYNONYMS. — Geophilus transmontanus Selivanov, 1884 : first synonymized by Muralewicz (1926) (type material and type localities: four syntypes, from Akstafa, Adzhikent [both in Azerbaijan] and Elenovka [ Kazakhstan]). — Pleurogeophilus hypotrichus Folkmanová, 1956 : n. syn. (see notes below) (type material and type localities: 15 syntypes, from Krasnodar Krai [ Russia]).— Pleurogeophilus gorizensis caucasicus Folkmanová, 1958 : n. syn. (see notes below) (type material and type localities: six syntypes, from Gora Tkhab and Mount Achishkho [ Russia]).

NOMINAL SUBSPECIES. — None.

MAIN REFERENCES. — Selivanov 1884: 85 (original description, as Geophilus caucasicus ), 86 (original description of G. transmontanus ); Lignau 1903: 101 (redescription); Folkmanová 1956: 1637 (original description of P. hypotrichus ); Folkmanová 1958: 187 (original description of P. gorizensis caucasicus ).

MATERIAL EXAMINED. — Georgia. Sioni , 24.VII.1967, 1 ơ (45 mm, 71 leg pairs) (coll. MB). — Tbilisi, 26.VI.1988 K. Thaler lg, 2 ♀♀ (60 and 55 mm, both 73 leg pairs), 5 ơơ (54, 50, 48, 45, 40 mm; 71, 73, 73, 73, 71 leg pairs respectively) (coll. MB) .

DIAGNOSIS. — A Clinopodes species up to c. 6 cm long; 57-89 pairs of legs, most often 61-73 in the male and 65-73 in the female; denticles of the forcipular coxosternite relatively short, distinctly wider than long; chitin-lines reaching the condyles; even the largest sternal pore-fields on the posterior leg-bearing segments remaining well behind the mid-length of the metasternite; almost all canals of the coxal organs converging into 2 or 3 poorly recognizable clusters aligned along the lateral margin of the metasternite and usually covered by it; additionally, usually one, sometimes two, small pores, on the ventro-lateral side of each coxopleuron, far apart from all the other pores and lateral to them. See also Table 3 and key to species.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION. — Caucasus and eastern Anatolia.

TAXONOMIC AND NOMENCLATURAL NOTES The name Geophilus caucasicus was made available by Selivanov (1884) but it had been introduced before as a nomen nudum by the same author ( Selivanov 1881). Geophilus caucasicus was maintained as a valid species in the genus Geophilus ( Attems 1903, 1907; Lignau 1903; Muralewicz 1907, 1910, 1926; Titova 1969; Zapparoli 1999), and other specimens were reported from the Caucasus ( Lignau 1903; Muralewicz 1907) and eastern Anatolia ( Zapparoli 1999), even though it was ignored by Attems (1929a). Worth noting is that the same C. Attems labelled the type specimens, which are preserved at the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, as “ Clinopodes flavidus polytrichus ” ( Ilie et al. 2009) . The species is assigned here for the first time to the genus Clinopodes , as C. caucasicus n. comb., after the direct examination of specimens reliably recognizable as representative of the species and the evaluation of all published accounts. According to the original description by Selivanov (1884) and the description and illustrations subsequently provided by Lignau (1903) for other reliably identified specimens, G. caucasicus has a combination of characters that is unambiguously diagnostic of Clinopodes , namely the general shape and features of the forcipular segment including chitin-lines and denticles of the coxosternite, the arrangement of sternal and coxal pores, and the lack of claws on the ultimate legs. Worth noting is that G. caucasicus was originally described by Selivanov (1884) in a key to Geophilus species including other species actually belonging to Clinopodes , i.e. G. flavidus (currently C. flavidus ), G. montanus (a synonym of C. flavidus ; see below), and G. transmontanus (a synonym of C. caucasicus ; see above). Geophilus caucasicus and its synonym G. transmontanus were both made available simultaneously by Selivanov (1884), but the former is the valid name for the species since Muralewicz (1926), who acted as “First Reviser” ( ICZN 1999: Art. 24.2) when synonymizing G. transmontanus under G. caucasicus .

NOTES ON NEW SYNONYMIES

Pleurogeophilus hypotrichus was described by Folkmanová (1956) based on 15 specimens of either sex from “Krasnodarskii krai (Georgievskoe lesnichestvo Tuapsinskogo raiona)”(= Krasnodar Krai [Georgievsk forest district, Tupsinsk region]) in the western Caucasus.It was cited subsequently only rarely ( Titova 1969), and its status remained to be assessed. Based on the original description ( Folkmanová 1956), P.hypotrichus is confidently recognizable as belonging to Clinopodes because it is characterized by a combination of characters that is unambiguously diagnostic of this genus, namely features of the forcipular segment including chitin-lines and denticles on the coxosternite, shape of sternal pore-fields, and general traits of the ultimate leg-bearing segment including the shape of the metasternite and the lack of claws. Moreover, P. hypotrichus agrees with C. caucasicus in all major characters that are diagnostic of the latter species in comparison with all other species of Clinopodes , including complete chitin-lines, relatively high number of trunk segments, and the peculiar arrangement of the coxal pores. Worth noting is that the type localities of P. hypotrichus are within the known range of C. caucasicus . Most probably, Folkmanová (1956) failed to classify the species in the proper genus because she relied on a wider, imprecise concept of the genus Pleurogeophilus Verhoeff, 1901 , and the nominal species G. caucasicus had remained almost neglected in the literature.

Pleurogeophilus gorizensis caucasicus was described by Folkmanová (1958) based on six specimens of either sex from “Kavkaz, gora Tkhab” (= Gora Tkhab [ Russia]) and “Krasnaya Poljana, sklon gory Achishkho” (= Mount Achishkho [ Russia]), in the western Caucasus.No other specimens were referred to this taxon, which was cited only rarely ( Titova 1969), but its status was never questioned explicitly. Based on the original description ( Folkmanová 1958), P. gorizensis caucasicus can be confidently recognized as belonging to Clinopodes because it was described as a subspecies of Geophilus gorizensis Latzel, 1880 , which is recognized here in Clinopodes (see below, under C. flavidus ), and even the few characters listed by Folkmanová (1958) as differentiating it from the typical P. gorizensis are fully compatible with a Clinopodes species.Moreover, among all known species of Clinopodes , the extent of the posterior pore-fields and the pattern of coxal pores are suggestive of C. caucasicus , which is also the species most frequently reported from the whole Caucasus range.