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| Epiperipatus puri Costa, Mendes & Giupponi, 2023 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.15384 |
Abstract
Epiperipatus ohausi (Bouvier, 1900) is the first species known from Rio de Janeiro, and more than 120 years later a new species is described in the state of Rio de Janeiro (RJ). In this study, we describe the second species in the state of Rio de Janeiro, which we are naming in honor of the indigenous population called puri who resided in southeastern coastal Brazil. The species can be diagnosed mainly by large dorsal primary papillae close to the insertion of the legs drawing a light band from the anterior to the posterior region of the body, and large dorsal primary papillae alternating on the dorsal plicae. Moreover, they are recognized in vivo by the color of the diamond-shaped marks brownish orange on the dorsal portion of the body. Epiperipatus puri sp. nov. morphologically seems to be related to Epiperipatus acacioi (Marcus & Marcus, 1995) by the shape of the primary papillae apical piece and to E. ohausi by the resemblance of dorsal papillae. The phylogeny shows a close relationship between the new species and E. ohausi in a clade with a still undescribed species from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil located within the Atlantic Forest, one of the most threatened biomes in the world.
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| Photos of female paratype. Epiperipatus puri sp. nov., body background and papillae of female paratype MZUSP 0122, and the environment where the specimens were found. Body background in (A and B) dorsal side, (C and D) lateral side and (E) ventral side. (F) Site where the specimens were collected, under the roots of the grass, at Reserva Ecológica de Guapiaçu (REGUA), Cachoeiras de Macacu, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Scales bars 2, 4 and 5 = 1 mm; 3, 6 = 2 mm. |
Family Peripatidae Evans, 1901
Genus Epiperipatus Clark, 1915
Epiperipatus puri sp. nov.
Diagnosis (based on a combination of characters as follows). Epiperipatus species with large dorsal primary papillae close to the insertion of the legs drawing a narrow light band from the anterior to posterior regions of the body. The distribution of large pale dorsal primary papillae alternates the dorsal plicae with clear differences in the number in two sequential plicae. Moreover, they are recognized in vivo by the color the diamond-shape marks brownish-orange (Figs. 2A–2D).
Etymology. The epithet puri (in apposition) refers to the Puri indigenous group belonging to the Macro-Jê linguistic group. They inhabited, among other places, the mountain region of the Rio de Janeiro state where specimens of this species were collected. Noun in apposition.
Conclusions:
Our description of Epiperipatus puri sp. nov. contributes to the knowledge of the biodiversity in a hotspot for conservation, the Atlantic Forest. We characterized the species morphologically with the use of SEMs and photographs, including in vivo (important for recognizing the species in the field). All the type material was collected in a private reserve that is contiguous to a State Protected Area, demonstrating the importance of this type of initiative. E. puri sp. nov. was assigned to Epiperipatus such as the putative closer species, E. ohausi, but future studies could reveal the actual boundaries of the genera for there is molecular evidence that they could belong to Peripatus (Giribet et al., 2018). One of the known obstacles to the conservation of invertebrates is the poor state of knowledge of the species, many still unnamed. In the case of velvet worms, the difficulty to describe a species is notorious, and one recent proposed solution to deal with this problem is to connect information about undescribed species to common names (Sosa-Bartuano, Monge-Nájera & Morera-Brenes, 2018).
Cristiano Sampaio Costa, Amanda Cruz Mendes and Alessandro Ponce de Leão Giupponi. 2023. Epiperipatus puri sp. nov., A New Velvet Worm from Atlantic Forest in Southeastern Brazil (Onychophora, Peripatidae) PeerJ. 11:e15384. DOI: 10.7717/peerj.15384
