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Preliminary taxonomic evalutation and diversity of Alpioniscus (Illyrionethes) taxa in the Dinaric Karst

The genus Alpioniscus is divided into two subgenera: Alpioniscus (12 spp.) and Illyrionethes (16 spp.). All known species of the genus Alpioniscus are troglobitic with the exception of the Sardinian endogean species A. thanit. The subgenus Illyrionethes is mainly distributed in the Dinaric area, but two species (A. fragilis and A. thanit) occur in Sardinia, and one species (A. escolai) in Spain. In the Dinaric karst we could identify 21 species in the subgenus Illyrionethes, of which 8 are new. The most important features to distinguish species are the male secondary sexual characters, especially the basal lobe on merus and dorsal lobe on carpus of the pereiopod 7, and the shape of the pleopod 1 and 2. On the basis of these sexual characters two groups of species can be distinguished: the strasseri-group with seven species, with relatively large distributions and mainly occurring on high mountains, and the heroldi- group with 14 species, mostly with very limited distributions close to the coast. Only three species in the latter group can be found deeper inland, and only one is present at high elevation.

Alpioniscus, Illyrionethes, Dinaric karst, taxonomic evaluation, diversity

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