Stenotaenia palpiger

STENOTAENIA PALPIGER (ATTEMS, 1903) Geophilus palpiger Attems, 1903: 231 (original description). Nesogeophilus palpiger: Attems, 1929a: 184 (in key), 187 (redescription); 1947: 117 (in key). Type locality: ‘ Podgorje, Istrien’ = Podgorje (Slovenia). Type material: Holotype, male, 17-mm long; held in the Naturhistorisches Museum, Wien, NHMW4843 (V. Stagl, pers. comm.). Diagnosis: A Stenotaenia species of small body size (total length reaching at least 1.5 cm); c. 49 legbearing segments; first maxillae with distinct lappets on the coxosternum and small lappets on the telopodites; chitin lines of the forcipular coxosternum reaching the anterior condyles; forcipular intermediate articles distinct; sternal pore areas in the anterior part of the trunk oval, longer than wide, and placed on the posterior half of each sternum; each coxopleuron with one anterior pouch with pores and one posterior single pore (see also Table 3). Taxonomic history: After the original description by Attems (1903), no other specimens have been referred to this nominal species. Its validity has been questioned and its identity to S. romana has been suspected (Foddai et al., 1995; Stoev, 1997). Assignment to Stenotaenia: It is assigned confidently to Stenotaenia (comb. nov.), as the original description documents a combination of characters that are diagnostic for this genus (Table 2). Validity: It is treated here as a distinct species only provisionally, as further investigations are needed to evaluate its putative differences in respect to other species of Stenotaenia, especially S. cribelliger (Table 3). However, based on the original description, the suspected synonymization of G. palpiger under S. romana appears unwarranted, as body size and segment number of the holotype of G. palpiger are outside of the known range of variation for S. romana, and the two nominal species apparently also differ in the evidence and degree of elongation of the chitin lines; furthermore, the type locality of G. palpiger is outside of the known range of S. romana. Distribution: Only known from a locality in Istria (Fig. 2).Published as part of Bonato, Lucio & Minelli, Alessandro, 2008, Stenotaenia Koch, 1847: a hitherto unrecognized lineage of western Palaearctic centipedes with unusual diversity in body size and segment number (Chilopoda: Geophilidae), pp. 253-286 in Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 153 (2) on pages 271-272, DOI: 10.1111/j.1096-3642.2008.00394.x, http://zenodo.org/record/544607