On Ctenolepisma ciliata and a new related species, Ctenolepisma armeniaca sp. n. (Zygentoma, Lepismatidae)

On the basis of specimens from the type locality in Valencia (Spain) Ctenolepisma ciliata (Dufour, 1831) is redescribed and its variability is studied examining some other specimens from Spain as well as Western-Mediterranean countries. With this study as reference, some other specimens determined previously as Ctenolepisma ciliata can be compared. In this light, it is possible to conclude that some of them do not belong to the species described by Dufour. This is the case of some specimens from the Canary Islands identified as C. vieirai Mendes 1981, and specially one specimen from Armenia studied by Mendes (1982). This specimen is bigger than C. ciliata and shows a different setation, specially in the thoracic sternites: in the mesosternum and the metasternum, macrosetae are arranged in one single row in Ctenolepisma ciliata and in two parallel rows in the Armenian insect; in the prosternum, the first species shows 1-2 irregular lines of macrosetae and the armenian specimen shows 2-3 lines. The validity of this character has been demonstrated recently to separate C. lineata (Fabricius, 1775) from C. almeriensis Molero-Baltanás et al., 2005. This characteristic and some others allow us to create the new species Ctenolepisma armeniaca sp. n. © 2010 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.