Szeptyckitheca karlarum (Palacios-Vargas, Vazquez & Cuellar , 2003) Bellini & Oliveira & Weiner & Nunes & Medeiros, 2023

Bellini, Bruno Cavalcante, Oliveira, Mariana Fernandes De, Weiner, Wanda Maria, Nunes, Rudy Camilo & Medeiros, Gleyce Da Silva, 2023, Revisiting Szeptyckitheca Betsch & Weiner (Collembola, Symphypleona, Sminthuridae): new species, updated diagnoses, and a key, ZooKeys 1186, pp. 139-174 : 139

Szeptyckitheca karlarum (Palacios-Vargas, Vazquez & Cuellar, 2003) comb. nov.

Sphyrotheca karlarum Palacios-Vargas, Vázquez & Cuéllar, 2003: 303-306, 308, figs 4-6, Mexico, Quintana Roo, Reserva de la Biosfera de Sian Ka’na (orig. descr.).

Diagnosis.

Males pale bluish, with purple or blue spots on antennae, dorsal head and furca, dorsal trunk striped; females yellowish, with brown spots and stripes with the same distribution of males. Ant. IV with nine or ten subsegments, with some proximal chaetae capitate; Ant. III with 19 chaetae other than the sensory clubs, 4-6 of them longer than the others and capitate; Ant. II with 15 chaetae, two of them clearly longer than the others, two of them modified into spines; Ant I with six chaetae. Eyepatches with two interocular chaetae each, one of them modified into a spine. Head vertex with a total of 16 large and rough spines, two of them unpaired; unpaired chaeta A1 absent; secondarily reduced chaetae near the spines present. Trochanters I-III with 1,0,1 spines, respectively, trochanters I and III spines blunt; trochanter III with five regular chaetae other than the spine. Ungues with a single inner tooth, with tunica and strong pseudonychia; unguiculus I with the internal tooth; unguiculus III filament thin and not reaching the tip of the unguis III. Large abdomen with capitate chaetae. Female with a long subanal appendage (slightly surpassing the ventral anal valves), spatulated, apically serrated on both faces. Dens ventral chaetotaxy formula from the apex to the base as: 3,2 … 1, dorsal chaetotaxy with 12 chaetae; mucronal notch discrete (adapted from Palacios-Vargas et al. 2003).

Remarks.

Sphyrotheca karlarum is herein transferred to Szeptyckitheca due to the presence of robust and mostly erect spines on the head vertex and dorsal large abdomen, presence of three transversal rows of dental ventral chaetae and presence of spines on trochanters I and III, features used by Betsch and Weiner (2009) to separate Szeptyckitheca from Sphyrotheca .

Habitat.

Specimens were found in low flooded jungle ( Palacios-Vargas et al. 2003).

Known distribution.

Mexico ( Palacios-Vargas et al. 2003).