Chilota purcelli ( Beddard, 1897 )

Plisko, Jadwiga Danuta, 2012, An annotated checklist of the South African Acanthodrilidae (Oligochaeta: Acanthodrilidae: Acanthodrilinae, Benhamiinae), Zootaxa 3458, pp. 4-58 : 12

Chilota purcelli ( Beddard, 1897)

Acanthodrilus purcelli Beddard, 1897: 337 .

Acanthodrilus purcelli: Reynolds & Cook 1976: 160 ; BMNH; ZMH.

Chilota priesti Michaelsen 1913a: 517 .

Chilota priesti f. typicus Michaelsen, 1913b: 54.

Chilota priesti f. minor Michaelsen, 1913a: 518.

Chilota priesti f. minor Michaelsen, 1913b: 55.

Chilota purcelli: Michaelsen 1900: 147 , Michaelsen 1913a: 521, 1913b: 55; Reynolds & Cook 1976: 160; Pickford 1937: 453 –475; Sciacchitano 1960: 10; BMNH.

Type locality. WC, Cape Peninsula: ‘under rotten log in the woods on the Newlands slope…’ In the sample were ‘ten specimens but only one of these ten was sexually mature; this individual was the largest of the series’ ( Beddard 1897).

Distribution. Chilota purcelli Beddard, 1897 with its five subspecies (see below) is the most common megadrile in the Cape Peninsula and its neighbourhood. It is recorded also from distant localities in the coastal-belt area bordering Western and Eastern Cape provinces.

Remarks. One adult specimen BMNH 1904.10.5.888 labelled as ‘type’ is probably the holotype, although the inserted label is disintegrating, and it is difficult to establish the collection locality. BMNH 1904.10.5.905–907 with three immature specimens collected at ‘Cape of Good Hope’, labelled Acanthodrilus purcelli , redetermined by Pickford as Chilota purcelli , is probably also from Beddard’s type series material. Reynolds & Cook's (1976) indication of ‘ZMUH 7832’ being the type material of Chilota purcelli is confirmed here. The presently found ZMH V-7832 specimen of Acanthodrilus purcelli Beddard, 1897 , collected at ‘Südwestliches Kapland, Table Mtn’, is the specimen of the type series identified originally by Beddard. Pickford (1937) studied Beddard’s material kept at the BMNH and further samples, altogether more than one hundred, collected in the Western Cape and the southeastern part of the Eastern Cape, at various time, from various biotopes, by numerous collectors. The comprehensive results were monographed ( Pickford 1937) in detailed descriptions of the species' external and internal characters (ibid. p. 453–475), the ‘geographical distribution and sub-speciation in Chilota purcelli ’, the ‘key to the sub-species of Chilota purcelli ’, including also differentiations of traits (p. 476–477). Pages 477–500 ( Pickford 1937) contain extensive descriptions of the five subspecies, recognizing also ‘series’, ‘forms’, ‘variations’, and ‘transitions’. This exhaustive study based on remarkably large material is followed by a detailed revision of Chilota montanus Michaelsen, 1905 (put already in synonymy with Ch. purcelli Beddard, 1897 by Michaelsen (1913a), Chilota priesti Michaelsen 1913a and its forms typica and minor. As a result, Pickford recognizes five subspecies: Ch. purcelli purcelli Beddard, 1897 , Ch. purcelli longinquus Pickford, 1937 , Ch. purcelli spinosus Pickford, 1937 , Ch. purcelli montanus Michaelsen, 1905 , and Ch. purcelli priesti Michaelsen, 1913 .