Pseudotremia lusciosa Loomis

Overview & Synopsis

Pseudotremia lusciosa (Loomis)Dearolfia lusciosa Loomis 1939, p. 178. P. lusciosa Shear, 1972, p. 187.Type locality: Seneca Caverns, 3 miles northeast of Riverton, Pendleton Co., WEST VIRGINIA. Holotype male in MCZ.No additional collections of this species have appeared, but Pendleton County caves have not been wellexplored or collected. All known records are from caves in a small area around Seneca Caverns (Shear 1972; Fong et al. 2007). While the eastern tier of West Virginia counties from Mercer to Pocahontas are physiographically part of the Allegheny Plateau, with the border between West Virginia and Virginia running along the crest of the westernmost ridge of the Ridge and Valley Province in the south (East River Mountain), or the escarpment of the plateau in the north (Allegheny Mountain), Pendleton Co. is at the base of the West Virginia “panhandle,” where the boundary switches eastward to the Shenandoah and Great North Mountains. Thus Pendleton Co. is in the Ridge and Valley Province and has more in common physiographically with the Virginia counties to the southwest. It remains to be established if there are meaningful differences in the milliped fauna, since, as stated, little collecting has been done in this relatively undeveloped county, much of which is National Forest land.Pseudotremia lusciosa is troglobiotic, with strongly reduced eyes, attenuate appendages, and no pigmentation.