Friesea decemoculata Bo, 1903

Brahim-Bounab, Hayette, Bendjaballah, Mohamed, Hamra-Kroua, Salah, Lachi, Noureddine, Bedos, Anne & Deharveng, Louis, 2020, Checklist of the springtails (Hexapoda: Collembola) of the Edough massif northeastern Algeria, Zootaxa 4853 (1), pp. 51-78 : 59

15. Friesea decemoculata Bo ̈rner, 1903

Citations from Edough: Hamra-Kroua & Deharveng (2010: 62 as F. sp.3 cf. albida ); Brahim-Bounab et al. (2014: 41, 2017: 967 as F. albida ); Hamra-Kroua (2016: 85 as F. albida Stach, 1949 in Stach 1949a ); Brahim-Bounab (2017: 84 as F. albida ); Zoughailech (2017: 135).

Citations from Algeria outside Edough: Brahim-Bounab et al. (2014: 41, 2017: 967 as F. albida ); Hamra-Kroua (2016: 85 as F. albida ); Brahim-Bounab (2017: 84 as F. albida ); Zoughailech (2017: 135); Bendjaballah et al. (2018: 396); Bendjaballah (2020: 81).

Distribution: Euro- Mediterranean ( Bellinger et al. 1996 –2020).

Remark. Friesea decemoculata is very close to F. albida Bo ̈rner, 1903, from which it differs mainly by the presence of a small mucro. On this basis, the specimens initially reported as F. albida were reassigned to F. decemoculata by Zoughailech (2017: 270). Our specimens differ however from F. decemoculata by the presence of 2 +2 teeth on tenaculum (3+ 3 in the original Börner ‘s description of F. decemoculata , but the accompanying figure suggests rather 2+2). Another difference is the weakly developed tenent hairs in the Algerian specimens examined, while 5 tenent hairs per tibiotarsus are mentioned by Börner (1903) for F. decemoculata , but not illustrated. This could lead to consider our Algerian species as closer to Friesea laszloi Palacios-Vargas & Traser, 1997 from Caucasus. However, given uncertainties in the diagnostic characters cited above, we keep them as F. decemoculata as far as a comparison with F. laszloi has not been done based on the re-examination of type locality specimens of the former species. The presence of F. decemoculata in Algeria makes also sense biogeographically as it is described from Sicily.