Eupolybothrus Verhoeff 1907

Eupolybothrus Verhoeff, 1907

Eupolybothrus (Eupolybothrus) litoralis (L. Koch, 1867)

Lithobius fasciatus, graecus Verh. var. fasciatograecus mihi: Verhoeff 1901: 437, 450 (synonymy). Polybothrus (Eulithobius) fasciatus (Newport, 1844): Turk 1952: 657 (misidentification).

Material examined: 90 3, 74 ƤƤ, 29 unsexed, 111 larvae.

Sites: 2, 4, 7, 16, 27, 30, 31, 32, 42, 43, 44, 50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 57, 58, 71, 73, 74 (published), 90, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 103, 104, 106, 107, 109, 110, 111, 113, 114, 115, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 130, 133 (published), 134, 135, 137, 139, 141, 142, 144, 146, 150, 152, 153, 155, 157, 158, 162, 172 (Fig. 2).

General distribution. Europe: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece (mainland, Crete, Cyclades, Dodecanese), Montenegro, Romania (?), Slovenia; West Asia: Cyprus, Near and Middle East (Turk 1952; Zapparoli 1991, 1995, 2002; Kos 1992; Negrea & Matic 1996; Stoev 1997; Simaiakis et al. 2005).

Chorotype. East Mediterranean.

Habitats. Under Eucalyptus, maquis and phryganic formations with Sarcopoterium spinosum, Ceratonia and Pistacia, mixed forests with Pinus, Quercus and Acer, mixed Pinus forest, near ponds with Eucalyptus and Acacia, ravines with Platanus, Juniperus and Pinus, open fields with Ceratonia.

Altitudinal range: 5–1640 m.

Remarks. The records from Cyprus published under Lithobius fasciatus graecus var. fasciatograecus, by Verhoeff (1901) or under Polybothrus (Eulithobius) fasciatus by Turk (1952) are referred to this species according to Eason (1970, 1983) and Stoev et al. (2010). The generic reference to a "large" Lithobius from the top of Mountain Troodos and common in the island given by Sinclair (1895: 32, 33) may be assigned to this species. The subgeneric assignment follows Jeekel (1967), but see Stoev et al. (2010).

Eason (1970) suggested that two subspecies can be recognized in E. litoralis, E. l. litoralis, confined to the Middle East, Anatolia and the Aegean Archipelago, without coxolateral spines (VaC) on the legs, and E. l. graecus, the Greek mainland, with one or two VaC at least on each of the 15th legs. In a later paper, Eason (1983) noticed the instability of this character in specimens both from north Eagean (Lemnos Is.) and mainland Greece (Thessalia), and rejected his previous idea suggesting instead that L. l. graecus should be considered merely as a variant without subspecific status.

All the specimens from Cyprus examined by us have no VaC spines, confirming the most frequent arrangement of the ventral plectrotaxy of the coxa in the eastern part of the range of this species (e.g., Verhoeff 1901; Eason 1970). Molecular studies in progress will clarify previous taxonomic interpretations and cryptic diversity within E. litoralis. Preliminary results show that South Anatolian and Crete populations are well separated from the remainder of the species hitherto referred to as E. litoralis, with genetic distances similar to those found between distinct species in the genus and suggesting the existence of cryptic species (Stoev et al. 2010; Porco et al. 2011).