Black piperfish
| Black piperfish | ||||||||||||
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Black pinnacle ( Tachypodoiulus niger ) |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Tachypodoiulus niger | ||||||||||||
| ( Leach , 1814) |
The black pinniped ( Tachypodoiulus niger ) is a European species of millipede . He lives in Great Britain, Spain, France, Benelux, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the Czech Republic.
features
The animal has a cylindrical, glossy black body with about one hundred distinctly lighter, almost white pairs of legs on 41 to 56 trunk segments. Due to the air cushion between the overlapping parts of the double segments, the animals can sometimes look ringed white. Adults are 15 to 35 millimeters (males) and 17 to 39 millimeters (females) long. Juvenile (not yet sexually mature) animals are lighter brown in color with three dark longitudinal bands, two on the flanks and one along the middle of the back. This makes them resemble the species Ommatoiulus sabulosus . The type can be recognized by the surface structure of the integument . The front, offset section of the fuselage rings (“prozonite”) is smooth, with fine transverse grooves that bend backwards in the lowest section. These are best recognizable by the middle segments on the curved animal. The rear section of the fuselage rings ( metazonite ) is evenly grooved lengthways and has short but distinct bristles that can reach about half the length of the metazonite. The animals are also characterized by a thorn-shaped, tail-like extension on the last body section ("telson"). Comparable formations also occur in a number of related species. The "tail" of the black piper is relatively short and straight, not bent downwards; at the end it appears blunt with a small, detached, upwardly curved tooth (difficult to recognize due to the bristles).
Life cycle
From the eggs laid in spring, young animals of the fourth to fifth stage develop in the first year and overwinter. In the second winter, the seventh or eighth stage is reached, in which sexual maturity occurs. Usually, however, the animals do not reproduce until the following spring. So you need two full years to complete the life cycle. The animals live on after the first reproduction and also go through further moults , during which they increase in size. In the case of the males, the sexually mature animal sheds its skin to an intermediate stage ("intercalary") that cannot be fertilized and is only able to reproduce again with the next molt. The intercalary stage is less active; it is often used as a resting place over the winter. According to conclusions from the life cycle, the largest animals found were probably nine years old, but actual observations over such a long period are not available.
Ecology and way of life
The black pinnacle is a Eurocean forest species, which means that it lives mainly in forests, but can penetrate into unwooded habitats. The species is quite resistant to drought, but prefers soil-moist habitats over dry ones in the open. The species is found more frequently on the surface of the soil than most related species and sometimes even penetrates tree trunks into the tree canopy. As a result of this behavior, the black parsnip occasionally (unintentionally) invades houses, but much less often than Ommatoiulus sabulosus . As the fastest native bilipod, it reaches a speed of 24 mm / s. "Tachypodoiulus" means something like "swift-footed Julide". It lives in the leaves, under bark and on moss, where it feeds on soil algae, detritus and fruits such as raspberries. The animal is mainly active at night, but also in the afternoons in summer. Like other millipedes, the black piper curls up in a spiral when in danger. The centipedes Lithobius variegatus and the common stone runner ( Lithobius forficatus ) belong to the predators of the black pimples .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Stuart M. Bennett: Tachypodoiulus niger . 2000. Retrieved October 19, 2013.
- ↑ a b c White-legged snake millipede - Tachypodoiulus niger . Natural England . Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved June 28, 2007.
- ^ A b J. Gordon Blower Millipedes: Keys and Notes for the Identification of the Species. Backhuys Publishers 1985. ISBN 9004076980
- ↑ a b Peter Decker: Large white-legged Schnurfüßer, Schwarzer Schnurfüßer - Tachypodoiulus niger (LEACH 1815) . www.natur-in-nrw.de. Retrieved February 19, 2013.
- ^ J. Gordon Blower, Colin P. Fairhurst (1968): Notes on the life-history and ecology of Tachypodoiulus niger (Diplopoda, Iulidae) in Britain. Journal of Zoology 156: 257-271. doi : 10.1111 / j.1469-7998.1968.tb05932.x
- ↑ Karin Voigtländer (2011): Preferences of common Central European millipedes for different biotope types (Myriapoda, Diplopoda) in Saxony-Anhalt (Germany). International Journal of Myriapodology 6: 61-83. doi : 10.3897 / ijm.6.2172
- ↑ Barundeb Banerjee: Diurnal and seasonal variations in the activity of the millipedes Cylindroiulus punctatus (Leach), Tachopodoiulus niger (Leach) and Polydesmus angustus Latzel . In: Oikos . 18, No. 1, 1967, pp. 141-144. JSTOR 3564643 . doi : 10.2307 / 3564643 .
Web links
Cave shrimp (2009) | Ragged Owl (2010) | Great mouse-eared mouse (2011) | Great Cave Spider (2012) | Cave mushroom mosquito (2013) | Höhlenwasserassel (2014) | Cellar gloss snail (2015) | Cave Long Legs (2016) | Four-spotted cave parasitic wasp (2017) | Schwarzer Schnurfüßer (2018) | Common cave mosquito (2019) | Brick Wall (2020)