Procladius Skuse 1889

Procladius Skuse (Fig. 26)

Large, oval head capsule whitish to yellowish in colour. Mandible slender, uniformly curved with dark black tip of the apical tooth; mola distally expanded to a large, broad tooth with bluntly rounded apex (Fig. 26). Dorsomental teeth (6–8) present. Ligula with 5 dark teeth, their apex is blackish brown. Paraligula multibranched with more or less prominent main spine (Fig. 26A). Shape of paraligula is diagnostic to differ the subgenera Holotanypus and Psilotanypus (Cranston & Epler 2013). Pecten hypopharyngis with 10–15 teeth and some smaller teeth in a supplementary row.

Remarks: Procladius remains differ from all other Tanypodinae with dorsomental teeth, in blackish-brown coloration of distal part of ligula and apex of mandibula, and in large, blunt mandibular mola expansion.

Detailed survey based on pupal exuviae study revealed presence of two species in the Tatra Mts.: P. (Holotanypus) choreus (Meigen, 1804) and P. (Holotanypus) tatrensis Gowin, 1944. While P. tatrensis is widespread with exception of the coldest lakes, P. choreus was repeatedly found in one, strongly acidified lake (Bitušík et al. 2006a).

Subfossil remains were common in most of studied lakes. All of them belong to subgenus Holotanypus.