Abstract
Two new troglobitic species of Xangoniscus are described from two caves of Serra do Ramalho karst area, Bambuí geomorphological group, state of Bahia. Xangoniscus lapaensissp. nov. is described from Gruna Boca da Lapa cave, and X. loboisp. nov. from Gruna da Pingueira II cave. Both species are blind and depigmented and show amphibious habits, as observed for all species of Xangoniscus described until now. Xangoniscus lapaensissp. nov. occurs in travertine pools fed by water of the upper aquifer, and X. loboisp. nov. occurs in a small stream, an upper vadose tributary. Both species occur in fragile microhabitats. Ecological and behavioral data, conservation remarks, and IUCN conservation assessments are included to provide background data for conservation efforts in this unique karst area.
Highlights
Terrestrial isopods (Oniscidea) are the only crustacean lineage completely adapted to the terrestrial way of life (Hornung 2011; Richardson and Araujo 2015; Taiti 2018)
It appears that X. loboi sp. nov. occurs preferentially in microhabitats fed by infiltration water in the limestone. This is very specific and unique, and probably the main habitat of this species is the spaces in rocks filled by water. Both species described show the classical signs of troglomorphism, as observed for the other eight valid species of Xangoniscus, i.e., X. aganju, X. ceci, X. dagua, X. ibiracatuensis, X. itacarambiensis, X. lundi, X. odara and X. santinhoi
This could be a pattern for the entire genus, since all species described until now show these same characteristics
Summary
Terrestrial isopods (Oniscidea) are the only crustacean lineage completely adapted to the terrestrial way of life (Hornung 2011; Richardson and Araujo 2015; Taiti 2018). Oniscidea comprises about 4,000 species distributed in more than 500 genera and 38 families (Javidkar et al 2015, 2017; Sfenthourakis and Taiti 2015; Dimitriou et al 2019; Campos-Filho and Taiti 2021; WoRMS 2021). Terrestrial isopods are one of the most representative taxa in the Brazilian subterranean environments, probably due to the special environmental conditions, such as high humidity, substrate heterogeneity, and absence of specialized predators (Fernandes et al 2016, 2019). Thirty-two taxa are considered to be troglobites (obligatory and restricted to caves), several are troglophiles (facultative cave species), and some species are possibly trogloxenes (Souza et al 2011; Campos-Filho et al 2014, 2015a, 2015b, 2016, 2017a, 2017b, 2018, 2019, 2020; Bastos-Pereira et al 2017; Fernandes et al 2018, 2019; Cardoso et al 2020a, 2020b, 2021). The species placed into the last two categories are difficult to assign into a correct subterranean category due to the scarcity of distribution data outside caves
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