Platyarthrus parisii Arcangeli, 1930

Taiti, Stefano & Rossano, Claudia, 2015, Terrestrial isopods from the Oued Laou basin, north-eastern Morocco (Crustacea: Oniscidea), with descriptions of two new genera and seven new species, Journal of Natural History 49 (33), pp. 2067-2138 : 2091-2092

Platyarthrus parisii Arcangeli, 1930

( Figure 15 )

Platyarthrus schöbli parisii ; Vandel, 1946, p. 219

Platyarthrus Parisii ; Arcangeli, 1952, p. 137

Material examined

1 ♂, 1 ♀, St. 25, under stones in meadow, leg. S. Taiti, 30 April 2004 ( MZUF 9477 ) .

Distribution

Canary Islands and Morocco. New record for the Rif region.

Remarks

Platyarthrus parisii was described by Arcangeli (1930) on female specimens from the Canary Islands (Gran Canaria and Tenerife). Vandel (1946) considers this form as a subspecies of P. schoblii Budde-Lund, 1885 and adds a record for Morocco (Mamora Forest, between Rabat and Meknès). Arcangeli (1952) in a discussion on the various subspecies of P. schoblii definitely considers this form as a species (see also Schmalfuss 2003). The specimens from the St. 25 (near Oued Ouara) examined by us show the same large lateral lobes of the cepalon and the same disposition of the dorsal ribs as P. parisii , but differ in the more protruding median frontal lobe. It is difficult to say whether this character can be enough to distinguish a distinct species or it falls within the variability of P. parisii . In order to facilitate a future comparison with the species from the Canary Islands the main characters of the specimens from Oued Ouara are illustrated in Figure 15 .

Figures

Figure 15. Platyarthrus parisii from St. 25, ♂: (A) dorsal scale-seta; (B) cephalon and pereonite 1, dorsal view; (C) pleonite 5, telson and uropods; (D) pereopod 1; (E) pereopod 7; (F) pleopod 1.