PROGETTO Serradium

            The Laboratorio di Biologia Sotterranea di Verona, attended the Tenth International Congress of Myriapodology organized by the Zoological Museum, University of Copenhagen since 29 July to 2 August 1996.

            In eight different sessions, 46 scientific comunications were presented and debated; the themes treated phylogenetic, evolutionary, systematic, biogeographical, ecological and behavioural aspects. During the Congress in the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters a keynote lecture was given by prof. Jonathan Coddington (Smithsonian Institute, Washington, USA): “Towards a theory of Inventory: Estimating species richness”. The plenary session of the Centre International de Myriapodologie and the Congress dinner to the Tivoli Gardens closed the Congress.

            The Laboratorio di Biologia Sotterranea di Verona shared in the Congress, together with Max-Planck-Institut (Germany), Zoological Institute and Museum University of Greifswald (Germany) and Zoological Museum University of Copenhagen (Danmark), a research about a new cave dwelling species recently discovered in same caves of the Lessini Mountains, near Verona. It is a blind, depigmented millipede with modified mouthparts and modifications to the respiratory apparatus (plastron respiration) that allow an amphibious mode of life in the subterranean water courses.

Abstract of the lecture presented to the Tenth International Congress of Miriapodology.

On the semiaquatic behaviour of a new troglobitic millipede from northern Italy (Polydesmidae, Diplopoda)

Adis J.1, Caoduro G.2, Messner B.3   &  Enghoff H.4

1Max-Planck-institut Fur Limnologie, Arbeitsgruppe Tropenokologie, Plon, Germany.

2 Laboratorio di Biologia Sotterranea di Verona, Verona, Italy.

3Zoologisches Institut und Museum der E.-M.-Arndt Universitat, Greifswald, Germany.

4Zoologisk Museum, Kobenhavns Universitet, Kobenhavn, Denmark.

Three different types of adaptations facilitate the amphibious mode of life of Serradium semiaquaticum Enghoff et al. 1996 in caves of the Lessini Mountains near Verona. They are:

1) morphological adaptations; hydrophobic microtrichia of the spiracles allow plastron respiration under water and small bubbles of atmospheric air in the water may be captured if the water current is above 75 cm/sec. Mouthparts are modified and the pectinate lamellae of the gnathal lobes allow uptake of organic particles from moist surfaces along the edges of subterranean water bodies and under water;

2) ecophysiological adaptations; the presence of ion-catching chloride epithelia in the intersegmental membranes presumably allow additional uptake of ions and of dissolved oxygen from the water;

3) ecoethological adaptations; S. semiaquaticum is a stenotherm and animals enter cold subterranean water bodies voluntarily. Flood resistance under laboratory conditions reached 4 weeks in duration in aerated water and one week in non-aerated water.

Results are compared with data obtained for the two troglobionts Serradium hirsutipes Verhoeff 1941, a non-amphibious polydesmid from the same cave, and Selminosoma chapmani Hoffman 1977/78, a hygrophilous paradoxomatid from Papua-New Guinea.

Research  Supported by 
Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Verona
Federazione Speleologica Veneta

Laboratorio di Biologia Sotterranea di Verona
Direttore responsabile: dott. Gianfranco Caoduro
Via San Marco, 83
37138 VERONA
tel. +39-045-568505