Armadillidae Brandt & Ratzeburg, 1831

Lillemets, B. & Wilson, G., 2002, Armadillidae (Crustacea: Isopoda) from Lord Howe Island: New Taxa and Biogeography, Records of the Australian Museum 54, pp. 71-98 : 74

Armadillidae Brandt & Ratzeburg, 1831

Diagnosis modified from Schmalfuss & Ferrara (1983). Cephalon compressed longitudinally, with a wide frontal shield; body able to conglobate; pleotelson with quadrangular distal part; antennal flagellum consisting of two articles; maxillula inner lobe with two robust plumose setae; male pereonite 7 sternite with bilobed lamellar process; pseudotracheae on all pleopodal exopods (only on the first four in Buddelundia ); uropodal protopod flattened with concave medial margin; uropodal exopod reduced, inserted dorsally near protopod medial margin.

Implicit characters

The following are characters found in all species of Armadillidae treated in this paper and therefore can be implicitly included into the descriptions. We use this list as a device to shorten the descriptions, while still providing comparison with taxa that do not have these features. Figures 6, 9 and 10 illustrate many of the typical limb features present in the Armadillidae treated in this paper.

Frons surface slightly depressed to receive antennae; clypeus lateral processes rounded. Mandible incisor process with 4 rounded, simple teeth, smaller and more blunt on right mandible than left; left mandible incisor process with small blunt tooth-like structure at lacinia mobilis base; right mandible lacinia mobilis small with two small blunt teeth; left mandible lacinia mobilis larger, with two sharp ridgelike teeth; molar process with fan-shaped row of long setae along thin, elongate base. Maxillule outer lobe medial margin with 4 apical larger robust setae, 6 smaller robust setae below; lateral margin apical half with row of setae decreasing in length towards apex. Maxilliped basis rectangular, distolaterally strongly rounded; endite rectangular with three thick apical setae; palp article 1 (ischium) broad, flat with one long, thick apical seta on medial side, one smaller seta on midline; article 2 larger, subtriangular, length 2–2.5 article 1, with one apical group of four setae on medial side, one group of 2–3 setae just below, one group of 2–3 setae on lateral margin; article 3 smaller, elongate and narrow, width approximately 0.25 article 2 width, length 0.67 article 2 length, with apical brush of setae, two lateral fine seta. Male pleopod 1 endopod elongate with grooved tapering distal half, row of short, thick setae along medial side of dorsal groove. Pleopod 2 exopod “L” shaped with broad proximal portion, distal portion elongate, distal half with ventral, densely setose groove; endopod proximal article small, triangular, distal article thin, narrow, tapering, with groove. Monospiracular covered pleopodal lungs present on all five pleopod exopods. Uropod protopod proximal portion not visible dorsally; exopod conical, inserted dorsally, not reaching protopod posterior margin, with apical setae; endopod cylindrical, inserted along protopod proximal inner margin, not reaching pleotelson posterior margin.

Remarks. Many armadillid generic types are poorly documented, causing misidentifications of many species. Anchicubaris fongosiensis Collinge, 1920 is one such type species, which led to the misidentification of species on Lord Howe Island as members of this genus. To revise species of Lord Howe Island, we must first revisit this species. We therefore provide a new diagnosis and illustrations of the lectotype of A. fongosiensis for comparison with the genus Stigmops n.gen.