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EDITORIAL:
TENTH ANNIVERSARY AND THE INTERNET
ONYCHOPHORAN
SYSTEMATICS: WHERE DO ONYCHOPHORANS BELONG
THE
LOST E.H. TAILOR ONYCHOPHORANS: FOUND!
ONYCHOPHORANS
HUNTING ON FOLIAGE
DO
ISOPODS PREY ON ONYCHOPHORANS?
REVIEW
OF AUSTRALIAN ONYCHOPHORANS
COULD
THE FOSSIL ONYCHOPHORAN XENUSION HAVE BEEN SO LARGE?
ONYCHOPHORANS
IN PUBLICATIONS
GIGANTIC
ONYCHOPHORAN DISCOVERED IN THE CARIBBEAN
ASSISTANCE
NEEDED
HOW
TO BE PART OF THIS NEWSLETTER
ONYCHOPHORANS
ON CD ROM
UPDATED
DIRECTORY OF PEOPLE INTERESTED IN ONYCHOPHORANS
EDITORIAL
Tenth
anniversary and the Internet
This
may be the last Onychophora Newsletter to appear in printed
form. Forthcoming issues will be exclusively available on
the Internet. A temptative address to look for it is the Tropiweb
section in: www.ots.duke.edu, but if you fail to find it there
in the following months, look for Onychophora Online through
yahoo, magellan, altavista or any other web searcher. I think
that a good way to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the
newsletter is by placing it in the web, thus making it available
worldwide at a lower cost. I thank all of you who have been
with me throughout these years and specially the onychophora
fans who have contributed material for this newsletter. Other
findings that mark the anniversary are the breaking of the
world size record for onychophorans (note below) and the discovery
of amber preserved specimens (they are housed at the University
of Oregon and we are still waiting for a satisfactory description
as only a brief note in Science has been published).
Until
next time, best wishes from sunny tropical Costa Rica!
Julián
Monge Nájera
Correspondence:
J. Monge-Nájera,
Editor, Onychophora Newsletter, Biología Tropical, Universidad
de Costa Rica, San José, Costa Rica. New telefax (506) 207
5550. E-mail rbt@biologia.ucr.ac.cr
ONYCHOPHORAN
SYSTEMATICS: WHERE DO ONYCHOPHORANS BELONG
As
usual, every new year brings a variety of papers about the
"correct" systematic position of onychophorans. As a rule,
they claim to have identified the errors in previous studies
and to finally offer a sound answer to the question. Papers
based on biochemical analysis usually differ widely in the
final outcome, both among themselves and from the traditional
morphological view. For a change from the DNA series, I recently
received a copy of a paper with a cladogram based on 13 morphological
characters that places Onychophora as sister group of Arthropoda
and relates both with the Clitellata. You can see it in Zoologica
Scripta 24 (pages 269-301).
THE
LOST E.H. TAILOR ONYCHOPHORANS: FOUND!
Years
ago I heard a rumor about onychophorans, probably of Phillipine
origin, collected by the late herpetologist E.H. Taylor of
Kansas. This was particularly important because the occurrence
of the phylum there, albeit expected for biogeographical reasons
(Zool. J. Linn. Soc. London 114: 2160) and reported in early
literature, has not been substantiated by museum specimens
that I know of.
I
am glad to inform that a jar of specimens, donated thirty
years ago by Taylor to Costa Rican entomologist Alvaro Wille,
was found in the Museum of Zoology, University of Costa Rica.
The specimens, however, were identified only by numbers stamped
on metalic plates.
After
a long search in which the assistance of botanist Luis Diego
Gómez, and of R. Krishtalka, A. Resetar (Field Museum) and
John E. Simmons (Kansas) was instrumental, I obtained locality
data: Nr. 432 Turrialba, Limón, 4190, 6043 and 4263 Moravia
de Chirripó, 4461 Volcán Irazoe, Cartago, 4502 and 4641 BataĆn,
Limón, 8453 Finca Los Diamantes, Limón (no data for 8975).
I also have the dates. All the localities are in Costa Rica,
so if Dr. Taylor did collect onychophorans in the Phillipines,
they are still lost and might appear in his large Kansas collection,
because his custom (Dr. Wille told me) was to place onychophorans
in the same jars with reptiles.
ONYCHOPHORANS
HUNTING ON FOLIAGE
Onychophorans
have long been considered soil animals. However, in 1911,
a young Costa Rican biologist who was studying the communities
of bromeliad tanks for his doctoral dissertation in the Paris
Sorbonne reported that he had found one onychophoran in the
dry part of a bromeliad tank in Limón, Caribbean of Costa
Rica.
After
almost a century, two or three more recent reports confirmed
that they climb trees. A similarly surprinsing report, onychophorans
living and hunting in foliage, as observed by American herpetologist
William Lamar, was mentioned in a 1993 paper (Rev. Biol. Trop.
41(3): 689-696).
Then,
in a letter written in October 1994, Peruvian herpetoloigst
Javier Icochea reported that he had found, in Cordillera del
Cóndor, near the border with Ecuador, an onychophoran that
had glued an insect to a leaf and was feeding on it. He preliminarily
identified it as Oroperipatus quitensis and sent an excellent
photograph documenting his finding. If some of you have further
reliable observations on the subject, I would like to see
them.
DO
ISOPODS PREY ON ONYCHOPHORANS?
Istvan
Pajor from South Africa collected two Peripatopsis moseleyi
in the Drakensberg (about 1840 m a.s.l.) and placed them in
his two-year old terrarium, taken over by isopods. After some
time he could only find one.
In
his own words: "The next day I could see this only Peripatopsis
in a burrow facing the glass panel of the terrarium It seemed
to be half-active, moving a bit back and forth. There were
a number of these large wood lice around it, some even on
top of it, but it did not make any attempt to "shake" them
off.
Then
I noticed that it had a few lesions, white spots on its back,
and one of the wood lice chewing-off bits of skin. I did not
think too much about it then; maybe that these scavenging
Crustaceans were just nibbling-off dead skin.
When
I had a look a few hours later, the onychophoran was at a
different location, now surrounded by numerous wood lice,
a number of which were gnawing on it. It was really in a bad
state already, not moving at all. I removed it quickly and
saw that it had already lost not only even more bits from
its "skin", but also one of the antennae and a few legs and
was oozing from its wounds.
I
placed it into a smaller dish with enough humidity and shelter
and it moved a little bit. But then it died the next day.
I do not know whether this would happen in its natural habitat".
Similar
but less conclusive observations have been published (Rev.
Biol. Trop. 41(3): 689-696) and only hard to do field work
will give a definitive answer, but if you have pertinent information
please speak out.
REVIEW
OF AUSTRALIAN ONYCHOPHORANS
A
cladistic review of Australian onychophorans, A.L. Reid's
Ph.D. thesis, has been published in Invertebrate Taxonomy
(vol. 10, 1996, p. 663-936). It includes 41 new species and
22 new genera, increasing the number of named Australian onychophorans
to 54. She suggests that (1) the oldest taxa, more closely
related with other peripatopsids,.are those from southeastern
Australia, (2) oviparity is a derived (not ancestral) character!
and (3) that species inhabiting the continent may not be monophyletic.
Only time will tell how this extensive erection of new taxa
will be received by colleagues, but many may miss the use
of the termination "patus" in her new genera.
ONYCHOPHORANS
IN PUBLICATIONS
Photographs
of onychophorans have appeared in recent books or will appear
soon:
1
Monge-Nájera, J. (ed.). 1995. Sustainable development: the
view from the less industrialized countries. Universidad Estatal
a Distancia, San José, Costa Rica. Epiperipatus biolleyi appears
in the cover. the photograph was donated by Hilke Ruhberg
of Hamburg.
2
A forthcoming University of California Invertebrate textbook
will feature an undescribed species of Macroperipatus from
the Caribbean of Costa Rica
COULD
THE FOSSIL ONYCHOPHORAN XENUSION HAVE BEEN SO LARGE?
In
a paper currently under preparation, Hou and Monge-Nájera
estimate individual weights of extinct onychophoran species.
These might have had weights ranging between 100 mg in the
case of Luolishania longicruris (the weight of an Epiperipatus
biolleyi of similar size) and more than 5000 mg in the case
of the 20 cm long Xenusion . Until recently one of the largest
onychophorans, Epiperipatus torquatus, was known to reach
15 cm and 4000 mg, but some had doubts that an onychophoran,
with its soft body and many legs, could exceed that size.
Perhaps Xenusion was not at all an onychophoran? Well, the
note below provides an answer.
GIGANTIC
ONYCHOPHORAN DISCOVERED IN THE CARIBBEAN
A
recently discovered and still undescribed Costa Rican species
from Cartago Province in the Caribbean of Costa Rica measures
20 cm in length, equal to the fossil Xenusion. It was collected
by Costa Rican herpetologist Alejandro Solórzano, who documented
the finding with several photographs. When he came to my office
with the animal, I thought he had a small snake in the jar
he was proudly showing me: then I was astonished to realize
what it really was!
The
original specimen, as well as others collected afterward by
Solórzano are deposited in the University of Costa Rica until
formal description. This proves that onychophorans can indeed
be the size of the ancient Xenusion, supporting the interpretation
that it was indeed an onychophoran.
ASSISTANCE
NEEDED
The
production of this newsletter has always been done without
financial assistance from any institution, and thus the extent
and contents of the newsletter are very limited. If you are
able to assist with a small donation, please do so: it will
be used to improve the Internet onychophoran site. I would
specially like to incorporate a comprehensive bibliography
(I have one that covers the XIX and early XX centuries, handwritten
by Dr. E.H. Taylor but need funds to have it typed) and a
photographic catalogue of living specimens but have no funds
for copying and scanning.
HOW
TO BE PART OF THIS NEWSLETTER
If
you have information, notes, requests and other material for
this newsletter, send it to the editor at rbt@biologia.ucr.ac.cr
or to J. Monge Nájera, Revista de Biologia Tropical, Oficina
15 Biología, Universidad de Costa Rica, 2050 Costa-Rica; rbt@biologia.ucr.ac.cr
ONYCHOPHORANS
ON CD ROM
D.D.
Williams (University of Toronto) has announced Invertebrate
Phylogeny, a CD ROM with a phylogenetic tree of invertebrates
where students can click on specific branches for information,
photographs and videos. Dr. Williams is looking for onychophoran
photographs. Coincidentally, I also received a request from
T.H. Carefoot from the University of British Columbia for
a similar material. I suggested that they use photos from
the Onychophora Online gallery, which I will soon include
in the WWW through the OTS website, but if some of you out
there have good material to share with them, just let me know.
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DIRECTORY OF PEOPLE INTERESTED IN ONYCHOPHORANS
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