A new giant egg-laying onychophoran (Peripatopsidae) reveals evolutionary and biogeographical aspects of Australian velv
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
A new giant egg-laying onychophoran (Peripatopsidae) reveals evolutionary and biogeographical aspects of Australian velvet worms Ivo de Sena Oliveira 1,2 & Georg Mayer 1
Received: 26 September 2016 / Accepted: 19 December 2016 # Gesellschaft für Biologische Systematik 2017
Abstract Representatives of Ooperipatellus (Peripatopsidae) are among the smallest onychophorans known, commonly varying between 10 and 20 mm in length. Herein, we present a peculiar new species of Ooperipatellus from Tasmania that can exceed twice the length of other representatives of this taxon. Ooperipatellus nickmayeri sp. nov. is comprehensively described based on morphological, molecular, karyological and slime protein profile data. Morphological analyses expose a set of novel features in this species, including a swollen area covered with a modified integument on the posterior border of the male genital pad, modified papillae on the female ovipositor and the presence of pseudoplicae in the dorsal integument. The evolutionary significance of pseudoplicae remains unclear, but similarities between O. nickmayeri sp. nov. and Plicatoperipatus jamaicensis, the only species from which these structures were previously known, suggest they evolved due to functional constraints of the onychophoran integument. Our karyological investigation further revealed that the new species has the largest karyotype known within Peripatopsidae (2n = 50, XY). Finally, the results of our molecular phylogenetic analyses support the recognition of O. nickmayeri sp. nov. and shed light on previously unclear aspects of the biogeographical history of Ooperipatellus in Southern Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13127-016-0321-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Georg Mayer [email protected] 1
Department of Zoology, Institute of Biology, University of Kassel, Heinrich-Plett-Straße 40, 34132 Kassel, Germany
2
Departamento de Zoologia, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Av. Antônio Carlos 6627, Belo Horizonte 31270-901, Brazil
Keywords Biogeography . Onychophora . Ooperipatellus . Peripatopsidae . Tasmania
Introduction Onychophorans, or velvet worms, are currently classified into two major subgroups: the circumtropical Peripatidae and the circumaustral Peripatopsidae (Oliveira et al. 2012a). Representatives of Peripatopsidae, in particular, represent over 60% of the onychophoran species described and are remarkable in their diverse reproductive features, including different insemination strategies, specialized sexual structures and various embryonic nourishment modes (Mayer et al. 2015). However, this diversity has been simplified in the literature, and peripatopsid species are commonly referred to as simply Bovoviviparous^ and Boviparous^ (e.g. Ruhberg 1985; Reid 1996), which is a rather misleading subdivision because the repeated use of these definitions, although not meant to, ma
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