The cave-dwelling dipluran (Diplura, Campodeidae) on the edge of the Last Glacial Maximum in Vancouver Island caves, North America (Canada)

Abstract

A new cave-dwelling dipluran of the North American endemic genus Haplocampa is described, coming from a couple of caves excavated in a small limestone karstic area near Port Alberni, Vancouver Island (British Columbia, Canada). To Haplocampa belong five soil-dwelling species. L. M. Ferguson cited no less than eight more species living in soil and cave habitats in several US states but without producing any formal descriptions. Haplocampa, in spite of its large lateral crests on the unequal claws, has clear taxonomical features as a Campodeinae and is closely related with the cave-dwelling Pacificampa and Eumesocampa genera, due to sharing similar macrosetae body distribution and absence or reduction of the lateral process. The new proposed species, Haplocampa wagnelli Sendra, sp. n., is rather interesting for its troglomorphic features: antennae with 32 antennomeres; olfactory chemoreceptors, each a multiperforated, folded-spiral structure; and numerous gouge sensilla. In addition, it is one of the northernmost troglomorphic species to have colonised - presumably recently - an area occupied by the Late Wisconsinian North America ice sheet during the Last Glacial Maximum. Furthermore, the close affinities between Haplocampa, Pacificampa (from caves in the extreme east of continental Asia and the southern Japanese Islands), Metriocampa (from the east of Asia and North America) and Eumesocampa (endemic to North America) suggest probable dispersal events over the Bering Land Bridge.