Three new species of pseudoscorpions (Arachnida: Pseudoscorpiones: Pseudotyrannochthoniidae) from caves in Yunnan and Guizhou Provinces, China

Abstract

Three new species of pseudoscorpion, Allochthonius lini sp. nov. (Xiaoguoquan Cave) and Selachochthonius yinae sp. nov. (Xiao Cave) from Yunnan Province, Allochthonius xuae sp. nov. (Yelaoda Cave) from Guizhou Province, are described and illustrated. An identification key is provided for all known Chinese representatives of the family Pseudotyrannochthoniidae.

A new species of the genus Centrochthonius Beier, 1931 (Pseudoscorpiones: Pseudotyrannochthoniidae) from Kyrgyzstan

“…At the same time, the distribution of a particular species can be limited not only to large mountain systems, but also to individual high-mountain valleys, mountain ranges, caves or karst massifs, etc., as this has been found in numerous insect taxa [Kryzhanovsky, 1965;Faille et al, 2015;Weng et al, 2020]. This is partly confirmed by recent genetic and morphological studies on other pseudotyrannochthoniid pseudoscorpions [Harms, 2013[Harms, , 2018Harms, Harvey, 2013;Harms et al, 2019;Viana, Ferreira, 2021;Prado et al, 2022;You et al, 2022;Gao et al, 2023;Li, 2023]. Thus, the genus Centrochthonius is rather a relict with a possible refugium in the mountains of Central Asia.…”

“…On the other hand, the arrangement of lyrifissures on the carapace has been described for many species, but it is virtually constant there. Thus, Li [2023] used the presence of lyrifissures on the carapace as a diagnostic feature to distinguish C. cheni from C. kozlovi, referring to the report by that "lyrifissures are not visible" in C. kozlovi. However, because used the very old museum/type material for their revision, which was imperfectly preserved, they were not able to see lyrifis-sures although they would have been present in the living animals.…”

“…3A). This is why the species diagnostics concerning lyrifissures on the carapace may well be controversial in many descriptions, and those in Li [2023] are certainly unrelibale. Zaragoza [2017] has detailed, designated and analyzed the taxonomic significance of the arrangement of lyrifissures on the chela and chelicerae of various species of Chthoniidae.…”