The Presence of Ridgewayia Marki Minorcaensis N. Ssp. in the Western Mediterranean

Abstract

Fifteen specimens of Ridgewayia marki minorcaensis n. ssp., collected from Calan Porter Cave, Minorca (western Mediterranean) on 18 July, 1988, are compared with closely related species. The presence of a hitherto undescribed structure on the basis of the right fifth leg of the male justifies establishing a new subspecies. This is the second record of this species, next to that from the Bermuda islands, and thus represents an interesting geographic distribution. The presence, in the same cave, of Exumella polyarthra Fosshagen, 1970, until now found only in the Bahamas, might pose the hypothesis of a relict character of these Mediterranean populations.