Distribution of the Milliped Virgoiulus Minutus (Brandt, 1841): First Records from Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas (Julida: Blaniulidae)
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Western North American Naturalist Volume 65 Number 2 Article 16 4-29-2005 Distribution of the milliped Virgoiulus minutus (Brandt, 1841): first records from Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas (Julida: Blaniulidae) Chris T. McAllister Texas A&M University, Texarkana, Texas Rowland M. Shelley North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh Henrik Enghoff University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark Zachary D. Ramsey Texas A&M University, Texarkana, Texas Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/wnan Recommended Citation McAllister, Chris T.; Shelley, Rowland M.; Enghoff, Henrik; and Ramsey, Zachary D. (2005) "Distribution of the milliped Virgoiulus minutus (Brandt, 1841): first ecorr ds from Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas (Julida: Blaniulidae)," Western North American Naturalist: Vol. 65 : No. 2 , Article 16. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/wnan/vol65/iss2/16 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Western North American Naturalist Publications at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Western North American Naturalist by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Western North American Naturalist 65(2), © 2005, pp. 258–266 DISTRIBUTION OF THE MILLIPED VIRGOIULUS MINUTUS (BRANDT, 1841): FIRST RECORDS FROM MISSISSIPPI, OKLAHOMA, AND TEXAS (JULIDA: BLANIULIDAE) Chris T. McAllister1, Rowland M. Shelley2, Henrik Enghoff3, and Zachary D. Ramsey1 ABSTRACT.—Virgoiulus minutus (Brandt 1841) (Julida: Blaniulidae), the only indigenous representative of the family in the New World, occurs, or can be expected, in parts or all of 24 states east of the Central Plains plus the District of Columbia; it is documented for the 1st time from Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas. The northern-, southern-, and west- ernmost localities are in Berrien County, Michigan; Putnam County, Florida; and Angelina/Rusk Counties, Texas, respectively. New England, Utah, Wyoming, Canada, and Mexico are deleted from the range, and specific localities are reported to augment previous generalized citations; those from Mexico represent misidentifications of Nopoiulus kochii (Gervais, 1847), an introduced European species that is recorded from Mexico City, Distrito Federal. Records of V. min- utus from Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, West Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, and Mis- souri are the 1st definite localities from these states; a sample from “Anechar,” believed to be a misspelling of “Arrochar,” a neighborhood in Staten Island, is considered the 1st definite record from New York. The published statement of occurrence in Delaware in general is the only known record of an indigenous diplopod from this state. Key words: Virgoiulus minutus, Nopoiulus minutus, Nopoiulus kochii, Blaniulidae, Mississippi, Texas, distribution. Shelley et al. (2005) observed that the dis- sites to fully document its distribution; to this covery of a single individual of many milliped end the 2nd author borrowed material from species from the region between the Missis- the ensuing list of repositories, which contained sippi River and the Central Plains, where dis- the 1st samples from Mississippi. tributions are usually poorly known, can alter Williams and Hefner (1928), Chamberlin and knowledge so significantly that published doc- Hoffman (1958), Loomis (1968), and Shelley umentation is in order. This was necessary (1978a, 1978b) considered V. minutus (then with the polydesmidans Scytonotus granulatus referenced as Nopoiulus minutus) to be a (Say) (Polydesmidae) and Pleuroloma flavipes European introduction, but we believe that V. Rafinesque (Xystodesmidae) (Shelley et al. minutus is an endemic Nearctic species and 2004, 2005), and is now necessary for the the only indigenous blaniulid in the New World, blaniulid julidan Virgoiulus minutus (Brandt). for the following reasons. To begin with, the Distribution statements for this species in milliped has never been encountered in Europe, most modern accounts are either general lists as have all the known Palearctic introductions, of states without specific localities or brief nor, in fact, outside the coherent range de- summary range descriptions. As part of the 1st picted in Figure 1. Second, while V. minutus author’s ongoing survey of myriapods in the does occur in urban environments, particu- “Ark-La-Tex” region, V. minutus was reported larly in the Southeast, it also is found well re- from 17 new counties in Arkansas by McAllis- moved from human influence, in contrast to ter et al. (2003), and the milliped has recently the introduced North American blaniulids that been discovered in southeastern Oklahoma occur exclusively in association with man and 4 counties in eastern Texas; coupled with either in urban environments or in agricultural a preserved sample from Angelina County, areas where they sometimes feed on crops, Texas, these represent new state records. As especially fruits like strawberries. Finally, the the only detailed locality data for V. minutus distribution pattern of V. minutus (Fig. 1) are those of McAllister et al. (2003), it is desir- counters those of all widely introduced mil- able to publish these and other unreported lipeds in North America, which occur across 1Biology Department, Texas A&M University–Texarkana, Texarkana, TX 75505. 2Research Lab, North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences, 4301 Reedy Creek Road, Raleigh, NC 27607. 3Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark. 258 2005] DISTRIBUTION OF VIRGOIULUS MINUTUS 259 Fig. 1. Distribution of Virgoiulus minutus. The question marks in New Jersey and Delaware indicate general records from these states; that in Michigan denotes the questionable record from Saginaw County (Snider 1991). the continent to varying degrees and north and Canada—and exclusively in association into Canada, as opposed to a large, coherent with man in cities and towns. Consequently, area in a single general region. If V. minutus the distribution pattern in V. minutus, in both were introduced, we would expect it to occur urban and rural habitats in one broad, defin- across the continent—for example in New able area east of the Central Plains, is not that England, California, the Pacific Northwest, of an introduced milliped but rather, we think, 260 WESTERN NORTH AMERICAN NATURALIST [Volume 65 definitive evidence that it is indeed an indige- milliped is particularly abundant in southeast- nous species. ern pine forests that have been ravaged by the Enghoff and Shelley (1979) first raised the southern pine beetle (Dendroctonus frontalis possibility that V. minutus might be native, and Zimmerman, 1868), in which dead pine logs Enghoff (1984a:400) stated that “if not intro- are plentiful. This association with pines makes duced, it is the only indigenous blaniulid in V. minutus one of the few North American mil- America.” In an account of the introduced bla- lipeds that collectors can search for deliber- niulid Nopoiulus kochii (Gervais, 1847), Shelley ately with a high probability of success, by vis- (1988) reported that V. minutus is endemic to iting predominantly pine forests and peeling the Nearctic, and Hoffman (1999) stated that bark off decaying logs. The individuals from Virgoiulus was presumed to be endemic to Oklahoma and Bowie and Cass Counties, Texas, southeastern North America. Five other blan- were discovered in this manner; those from iulids are known from this continent, all native Oklahoma were under bark of a pine stump on European species that have been introduced the edge of a wooded area; those from Bowie by man and now occur to varying extents County were under bark of decaying pine logs across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, primarily in a predominantly loblolly pine forest (Pinus in urban habitats (Chamberlin and Hoffman taeda L.) with scattered southern red oaks 1958, Enghoff and Shelley 1979, Enghoff 1984a, (Quercus falcata Michaux) and other hard- 1984b, Shelley 1988, 1990, 2002, Hoffman woods; and the specimen from Cass County 1999): Archiboreoiulus pallidus (Brade-Birks, was in litter associated with these trees. How- 1920), Blaniulus guttulatus (Fabricius, 1798), ever, the individuals from Newton and Rusk Proteroiulus fuscus (Am Stein, 1857), Chone- Counties, Texas, were encountered under bark iulus palmatus (N˘emec, 1895), and N. kochii. of decaying oak logs. These blaniulids are all narrow, fragile, cylin- Though plentiful, published records of V. drical (“juliform”) diplopods whose widths are minutus are somewhat difficult to trace be- roughly equivalent to the lead of a mechanical cause of its contorted nomenclatural history. pencil, and V. minutus is distinguished, even The first account was by Say (1821), who in juvenile stages, by the arrangement of the described it as “Julus pusillus,” but this bino- ocelli in a single row and by the extremely mial is preoccupied by J. pusillus Leach, 1815; short, microscopic, pleurotergal setae that are Brandt’s (1841) name, minutus, is thus the old- invisible under a stereomicroscope even at est available specific name. The main reason magnifications of around 100X. The setae are for the uncertainties, however, is confusion easily seen on other ocellate blaniulids, for between V. minutus and N. kochii, which has example P. fuscus, whose ocelli are arranged in an even more complicated nomenclatural his- 2 unequal rows, and N. kochii. As