New records of centipedes (Myriapoda: Chilopoda) in the fauna of Georgia, South Caucasus

Georgia's rich biodiversity, as a key part of the Caucasus hotspot, makes it an ideal destination for scientific research. Nevertheless, knowledge about the species diversity of different animal groups in this area remains limited. In this article we provide infor - mation on the nine centipede species ( Henia brevis (Silvestri, 1896), H. hirsuta Verhoeff, 1928, H. taurica (Sseliwanoff, 1884), Strigamia caucasia (Verhoeff, 1938), S. pusilla (Sseliwanoff, 1884), Harpolithobius spinipes Folkmanová, 1958, Lithobius antipai Matic, 1969, L. foviceps Muralevitch, 1926, and L. micropodus (Matic, 1980)) newly recorded in Georgia. Three of these species ( H. brevis , H. hirsuta , and L. micropodus ) are also new records for the Caucasus region. Data on their distribution, maps of the localities, and photos of the specimens studied are also given.


Introduction
The biological diversity of Georgia is remarkable and fascinating.The country, like the entire Caucasus, has attracted the interest of many zoologists who have studied the fauna of this area over the last two centuries.However, a large part of Georgia's biodiversity still remains unexplored (Mumladze et al. 2020).In this study, we contribute nine new records to the centipede fauna of Georgia, namely: Henia brevis (Silvestri, 1896), H. hirsuta Verhoeff, 1928, H. taurica (Sseliwanoff, 1884), Strigamia caucasia (Verhoeff, 1938), S. pusilla (Sseliwanoff, 1884), Harpolithobius spinipes Folkmanová, 1958, Lithobius antipai Matic, 1969, L. foviceps Muralevitch, 1926, and L. micropodus (Matic, 1980).Three of them, H. brevis, H. hirsuta, and Lithobius micropodus, are reported for the first time for the entire Caucasus.To date, 57 species and two subspecies were known from Georgia (Kiria et al. 2023); however, with the synonymization of Pleurogeophilus caucasicus under Clinopodes caucasicus, the number of species is reduced to 56.Subsequently, the number of known centipede species has increased to 65.

Materials and methods
The centipede specimens were collected between 2010-2023 in different regions of Georgia (Figures 1-2).Specimens were extracted from sieved leaf litter and topsoil using a Winkler extractor or collected by hand, then stored in 96% pure ethanol and identified using compound (Accu-Scope-Exc-350) and stereo microscopes (Unitron Z650HR).The specimens are deposited in the collections of the Institute of Zoology at Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia (ISUIZ).Images were taken with the same microscopes equipped with an Excelis AU-600HD camera and captured using Captavision 5.1 software.For species identification, we use Zalesskaja (1978) and the interactive key ChiloKey (Bonato et al. 2014).The classification and the currently valid names of the taxa follow Chilobase (Bonato et al. 2016).The scientific names of genera and species are arranged alphabetically.
The coordinates were recorded with Garmin GPSMAP 64s.The maps showing species distribution were created with QGIS (3.22.3).(Tuf and Tajovský 2016).

Order
Remarks.Henia brevis was described by Silvestri (1896) from Italy.This is the first record of this species in Georgia and the Caucasus as well.Distribution.Greece (Verhoeff 1928, Kanellis 1959, Matic 1976).Remarks.This species was described from a specimen found near Mesolongi, central Greece (Verhoeff 1928).This was the only information on its distribution until now.This is the first record of this species for Georgia and also for the entire Caucasus.Remarks.This species was described by Seliwanoff (1884) on the basis of 19 specimens (10♂ and 9♀) from the Crimea and was initially known as an endemic species of the Crimea.It was later recorded in Krasnodar, Russia, mainly under the stones of deciduous forests (Korobushkin et al. 2016).This is the first record of this species for Georgia.
Distribution.Russia: Krasnodar (Verhoeff 1938) Remarks.Originally, this species was described as Scolipolanes caucasius, and its taxonomic status was never questioned (Bonato et al. 2012).For a long time, this species was known only from a single locality in the western Caucasus, but recently larger material was collected from this region (Zuev 2016).This is the first record of this species for Georgia.
Remarks.Strigamia pusilla was described by Sseliwanoff (1884) based on 7♂ and 5♀ from Zarajsk, Russia.Here we presented the first record of this species for the territory of Georgia.Distribution.Russia (Folkmanová 1958;Korobushkin et al. 2016).
Remarks.This species is only known from the Caucasus.For a long time, only two localities were known from Russia until the study by Korobushkin et al. (2016) included new records from Krasnodar.We have added several new localities to the distribution of H. spinipes.This is the first record of this species for Georgia.Remarks.The original description of this species by Matic (1969) included two localities from Russia and Iran.Afterward, Zalesskaja (1978) added a new locality from Azerbaijan.Subsequently, nothing was known about this species until Dyachkov et al. ( 2023) reported additional new locality from Iran.Our report on this species is the first record in Georgia.Distribution.Azerbaijan: Kemervan (Muralevitch 1926, Dyachkov 2024).
Remarks.This species is widely known in Europe but has never been recorded from the Caucasus.This is the first record for Georgia and also for the entire Caucasus.

Discussion
A recently published checklist of Georgian centipedes lists 59 (sub)species based on a thorough review of all literature sources.However, this list contains minor inaccuracies (Kiria et al. 2023).
1. Lithobius piceus L. Koch, 1862, is included in the checklist based on the mention of the occurrence of the subspecies L. piceus caucasica Murale-witch, 1926, which was synonymized with this species by Matic and Darabantu (1968).However, a more recent paper by Golovatch et al. (2022) states that the subspecies L. piceus caucasica was synonymized with Hessebius megapus (Muralevitch, 1907).This information is not found in the cited article and is therefore probably a misstatement, thus the presence of L. piceus in Georgia is reported correctly.2. Pleurogeophilus caucasicus Folkmanová, 1958 is incorrectly included in the checklist.According to Bonato et al. (2011), it is a junior synonym of Clinopodes caucasicus (Sseliwanoff, 1884), which is already known from several Georgian localities and has recently been included in the checklist of Azerbaijan centipedes (Dyachkov 2024).3.For Strigamia cf. S. transsilvanica (Verhoeff, 1928), other possible occurrences in Asia were intentionally omitted.Although some, perhaps the same species similar to Strigamia transsilvanica, are repeatedly reported in several localities much further east (e.g., Nefediev et al. 2018, Dyachkov 2018).However, theoretically there may be several similar species morphologically close to S. transsilvanica, and the occurrence of a single species over such a large area is not very likely (Daychkov and Bonato 2024).4. Lamyctes coeculus (Brölemann, 1889) was listed as doubtful, because it was not clear where the information mentioned in Nefediev et al. (2016) came from.The occurrence of this species in Georgia was listed in Fauna Europaea according to information obtained from Pavel Nefediev, which was properly cited in his paper.However, the database Fauna Europaea contained many errors and has not been available for a long time.Therefore, it cannot be verified whether it is the country of Georgia in the Caucasus or the state of Georgia in the USA, although both possibilities are likely for this greenhouse species.
Thus, if the previous checklist documented 56 valid species and two subspecies from Georgia, the presented study extends the list of recorded species to 65 species and two subspecies.However, even though this number is probably not definitive, it can be assumed that even more species occur in this biodiversity-rich country.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Distribution map of newly recorded Geophilomorpha in Georgia.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Distribution map of newly recorded Lithobiomorpha in Georgia.