ON SOME ONISCIDEA AND DIPLOPODA FROM BUCHAREST , ROMANIA

This paper presents 14 species of Oniscidea and four species of Diplopoda – among them a species new to science belonging to the genus Bulgardicus Strasser, 1966 – collected exclusively in parks of Bucharest. UDC 595.61(498)


INTRODUCTION
As far as our information goes, no species of Diplopoda and only one species of Oniscidea -Buddelundiella cataractae Verhoeff, 1930, found by Tabacaru(1971) in a cellar storing wood -were known to date from Bucharest, Romania.
Our intention here is to continue and develop his work on the Oniscidea and Diplopoda in general and the urban invertebrate fauna in particular as an interesting but little investigated aspect of the Romanian invertebrate fauna.

MATERIAL AND METHODS
Our sampling sites were located in three urban parks in different areas of Bucharest, namely Herăstrău Park, "Lia Manoliu" National Stadium, and Tineretului Park.Sampling took place between April of 2004 and August of 2005.The material was collected by hand using tweezers, as we used only a qualitative approach.
Distribution: Romania, Bulgaria, European Turkey (Schmalfuss, 2003).In Romania, found until now only in Northern and Southern Dobruja (Radu, 1985;Giurgincaand Ć určić, 2003); this is the first record of the species on the Romanian Plain.Found almost exclusively under the bark of a rotten tree stump.
Family Trachelipidae Strouhal, 1953 8. Protracheoniscus politus politus C. L. Koch, 1841.Distribution: Eastern Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, former Yugoslavia south to Montenegro, Romania, and Hungary (Schmalfuss, 2003).Occurs in nearly all of Romania (Radu, 1985).Found under stones and pieces of wood in moist and shaded places.9. Trachelipus rhinoceros (Budde-Lund, 1885).Distribution: Coastal regions of Croatia (Schmalfuss, 2003).If this species is not conspecific with Trachelipus spinulatus Radu, 1959as Schmidt(2000) has suggested -this would be the first record of T. rhinoceros in Romania.If T. rhinoceros is really conspecific with T. spinulatus,then this species might represent a sub-species of T. rhinoceros.Found under stones in moist and shaded places.
14. Armadillidium nasatum Budde-Lund, 1885.Distribution: Autochthonous in Italy, France, Northern Spain, the Netherlands and Southern England, synanthropic in Northern and Eastern Europe, introduced to North America (Schmalfuss, 2003).In Romania, previously recorded only from Cluj-Napoca and Jassy.This is the first record of the species in the south of Romania.Found in a shaded grassy place in a garden under leaflitter of Buxus.
Order Craspedosomatida Gray, 1843 Family Anthroleucosomatidae Verhoeff, 1899 2. Bulgardicus bucarestensis Tabacaru and Giurginca, 2005.Distribution: Only one male was collected (from "Lia Manoliu" Naţional Stadionul), under pieces of treebark scattered on the soil in a wet and shaded clump of trees (Tabacaruand Giurginca, 2005).Bulgardicus bucarestensis represents the second species of the genus Bulgardicus Strasser, 1966, the first being Bulgardicus tranteevi Strasser, 1966, described from Bankowitza Cave near Karlukowo in northwestern Bulgaria (Strasser, 1966).Bulgardicus bucarestensis is a relict of the fauna from the ancient forests known as Codrii Vlăsiei, today represented by scattered pockets, some of them within the city limits of Bucharest.
Distribution: Central and Eastern Europe.Frequent in Romania (I.Tabacaru, pers. comm.).Found up to now only in the grass bordering a street.Koch, 1947).Distribution: Central Europe and the Balkan Peninsula.Frequent in Romania (I.Tabacaru, pers. comm.).Found under the bark of a tree.
Among the six families of Oniscidea, the best represented is the family Trachelipidae, with five species.The families Trichoniscidae, Cylisticidae, Porcellionidae, and Armadillidiidae are represented by two species each while the family Platyarthridae is the most poorly represented -by only one species.
As far as our information goes, these are the first records of Haplophthalmus danicus, Platyarthrus attanassovi, Cylisticus transilvanicus, and Armadillidium nasatum on the Romanian Plain.Although H. danicus was recorded from Govora (Radu, 1983) and so from Muntenia, it was not previously known from any flatland location.Platyarthrus attanassovi, recorded by us from Northern and Southern Dobruja (Giurgincaand Ć určić, 2003), is here recorded for the first time at a location outside Dobruja.
Considered endemic to the rocky region along the river Someşul Rece by Radu(1985), who described it as Cylisticus major in 1951, Cylisticus transilvanicus is here recorded for the first time outside Transyilvania, a fact pointing to a more widespread distribution in Romania.Similarly, the synanthropic Armadillidium nasatum -known up to now only from greenhouses of the Botanical Gardens in Jassy and Cluj-Napoca (Radu, 1985) -is now recorded from the Romanian Plain.
Among the Diplopoda, only the family Julidae is represented by two species.The other families (Anthroleucosomatidae and Polydesmidae) are represented by just one species each.In any event, the Diplopoda are much rarer and represented by fewer individuals than the Oniscidea.Among the four species of Diplopoda collected un-til now, Allajulus boleti, Megaphyllum unilineatum, and Brachydesmus superus are frequent and widespread in Romania, so from this point of view it was no surprise to find them in Bucharest.The most significant result of our study was the finding of Bulgardicus bucarestensis, a new genus for the fauna of Romania and an altogether new species.
As we can see, study of the urban invertebrate fauna is represents a promising and interesting direction of research.We intend to develop our study by sampling most, if not all, the parks of Bucharest and plan to extend it to forests in the city's vicinity.