Rossiulus kessleri

518. Rossiulus kessleri (Lohmander, 1927)

Schizophyllum kessleri Lohmander, 1927.

Rossiulus strandi Attems, 1927.

Sarmatiulus kessleri auct.

BY, RU-RUC, RU-RUE, RU-RUN, RU-RUS, UA. East European.

Forest, forest-steppe and northern steppe zones of Russia and Belarus in a wide variety of habitats, e.g., primary oak forest, mixed forest, pine forest, flood-plain forest, meadows, agricultural land, limestone denudations, calciphytic Stipa steppe with Thymus, Hyssopus and Artemisia. Abundant and often predominating in diplopod communities of both natural and anthropogenic habitats (Striganova 1996).

This calciphilous subendemic of the Russian plain ranges from Central Belarus in the west to the regions of Bashkir and Orenburg in the east and from the Archangelsk region in the north (northernmost record: Severnaya Dvina River delta N of Archangelsk) southwards to Dagestan, beyond our European frontier.

Prisnyi (2001) gave ecological details and showed a map suggesting a disjunct distribution based on the large river valley systems in the nemoral belt (Dnieper, Don, Volga). He described new varieties of the species and stated that these show increasing body miniaturisation and tegument sclerotisation towards the hotter and dryer south-east. The variety stepposa approaches Rossiulus vilnensis (Jawłowski, 1925) in the form of the opisthomerite and, as the two species occur together in Belarus, Prisnyi suggests that the status of the latter remains to be confirmed. Striganova (1996) studied the life cycle and reproductive strategy of R. kessleri.