116. Cylindroiulus caeruleocinctus (Wood, 1864)

Iulus caeruleocinctus Wood, 1864.

Julus teutonicus Pocock, 1900.

Cylindroiulus londinensis caeruleocinctus Brade-Birks, 1922.

Cylindroulus teutonicus auct.

Cylindroiulus londinensis auct.

Distribution

AT, BE, CH, CZ, DE, DK-DEN, EE, ES-SPA, FI, FR-FRA, GB-GRB, GB-NI, HU, IE, IT-ITA, LT, LU, LV, NL, NO-NOR, PL, PT-POR, RU-KGD, RU-RUW, SE, UA. Widely distributed from Iberia to Russia but not south of the Alps and the Carpathians. Mainly Central Continental. – Also widely introduced into Canada and the USA.

Habitat

An abundant species in much of Central Europe, often dominant in open habitats, especially grassland, and characteristic of dry grassland on chalk and limestone in many regions. But it also occurs in hedges and small woods, though very rarely in forests. Common in parks, gardens, cemeteries, waste places and arable land, and over much of its range it is strongly synanthropic. Many large populations have been found in urban areas; Davis (1979, 1982) found it the commonest species to fall into pitfall traps in London, while Fairhurst (1984) found the optimum habitat in the United Kingdom to be loamy agricultural soils. It may be found under wet leaves in parks and beside rivers in towns. While considered calcicole by many authors (e.g., Haacker 1968 found a strong preference for alkaline soils), there are records from other types of soil. The same author indicated that its preferred foods were broadleaves, followed by grass and moss.

It both hibernates and aestivates at some depth in the soil and shows a marked activity peak in the spring and a lesser one in the autumn. Principally a lowland species, found up to 1240 m in Switzerland (Pedroli-Christen 1993) and on a xerorendzina with evergreen oaks (Quercus) at 940 m and a pasture on brown earth at 1130 m in the Spanish Pyrenees (Serra et al. 1996). There are many records of this species attacking crops.

Remarks

As can be seen from the synonyms there has been much confusion in the past as to the identity of this species (see, e.g., Mauriès 1964; David 1995). As a general rule all records of C. teutonicus and records of C. londinensis from countries other than Spain, France, Ireland and Great Britain relate to C. caeruleocinctus.