Partygarrupius Verhoeff, 1939

FODDAI, DONATELLA, BONATO, LUCIO, PEREIRA, LUIS ALBERTO & MINELLI, ALESSANDRO, 2003, Phylogeny and systematics of the Arrupinae (Chilopoda Geophilomorpha Mecistocephalidae) with the description of a new dwarfed species, Journal of Natural History 37 (10), pp. 1247-1267 : 1253-1254

Genus Partygarrupius Verhoeff, 1939

Tygarrup (Partygarrupius) Verhoeff, 1939: 87 .

Type species. Tygarrup moiwaensis Takakuwa, 1934 , by monotypy.

Monotypic.

Diagnosis. Forty-one pairs of legs. Body colour homogenous, without darker patches. Body length ca 30 mm. Ratio of length to width of cephalic plate ca 1.2. Frontal line present. A single clypeal plagula, covering most of the clypeus. Clypeal setae arranged in a transversal band on the anterior half of clypeus. Buccae without setae. Spiculum absent. Side-pieces of labrum fully divided into anterior and posterior alae. Internal margin of each anterior ala reduced to a point. Posterior margin of labrum not hairy. Mandible with ca eight pectinate lamellae. Ventral surface of mandible hairy. Coxosternum of the first maxillae divided. Coxosternum of the second maxillae undivided. Metameric pores in posterior position. Telopodites of the second maxillae slightly overreaching those of the first maxillae. Claw of second maxillae present, shaped as a pointed conical tubercle. Forcipular trochanteropraefemur with a distal tooth only. Intermediate articles of forcipules with teeth. Basal tooth of tarsungulum pointed. Forcipular tergum without median sulcus. Sternal rhachides not anteriorly furcate. Last sternum subtriangular, longer than wide. Numerous pores on the ventral surface of each coxopleuron. Anal pores present.

The following combination of characters distinguishes this genus from Tygarrup and shows its kinship to the other Arrupinae (in brackets the corresponding traits in Tygarrup ): 41 (45) pairs of legs, ventral surface of mandibles hairy (not hairy), metameric pores of second maxillae opening in a posterior (lateral) position, telopodites of second maxillae relatively thin and short (robust and long).

Geographic distribution. Japan: Hokkaido Id.

Remarks. Partygarrupius Verhoeff, 1939 was introduced as subgenus of Tygarrup Chamberlin, 1914 , a representative of Mecistocephalinae , for a better allocation of Tygarrup moiwaensis Takakuwa, 1934 . This taxonomic placement was never questioned before.

In the present cladistic analysis of the subfamily Arrupinae Tygarrup (Partygarrupius) moiwaensis came out as the most basal branch within the ingroup. In the light of the results of the present analysis as well as of the previous one at the family level (Bonato et al., submitted), we propose to raise it to the genus level within the subfamily Arrupinae (new status).

The geographical distribution offers additional support to the morphological evidence: Partygarrupius moiwaensis (Takakuwa, 1934) is endemic to the Japanese island of Hokkaido, which is included in the distributional range of the genus Arrup , while Tygarrup is not known from this area.

The original description of Tygarrup moiwaensis was provided by Takakuwa in two separate and nearly identical papers, one in Japanese (1934a), the other in German (1934b) but with four vs two figures. Curiously, different numbers of pairs of legs were reported: while a number 41 is given both in the Japanese (Takakuwa, 1934a: 59) and in the German version (Takakuwa, 1934b: 357) of the original description, in the latter paper we also find the number 43 in a table where the new species is contrasted to Tygarrup javanicus Attems, 1929 , with 45 pairs of legs (Takakuwa, 1934b: 358). A few years later, in a key, Verhoeff (1939) credited T. moiwaensis with ‘43 (41?)’ pairs of legs; the question mark disappeared in Attems (1947), where the species was credited with ‘43 (41)’ pairs of legs, and in Shinohara (1965), where only 43 pairs of legs are referred to this species. No information concerning the number of pairs of legs is offered by Shinohara (1972) when recording new findings of T. moiwaensis , but in the same paper there is a figure of the habitus of the animal with 41 pairs of legs. The type material and the additional material described by Shinohara (1972) are not available, but we consider 41 as the most probable number of pairs of legs in P. moiwaensis , on the basis of the original description(s), the drawing provided by Shinohara (1972), the phylogenetic relationships and the strict invariance of pairs of legs in all remaining Arrupinae .