Philopotamus montanus subsp. montanus

Philopotamus montanus montanus (Donovan, 1813) = Philopotamus montanus (Donovan, 1813) in Lavandier 1979. TAXO / DIFF. Among the eight species of the genus Philopotamus recorded in France (Opie-benthos 2026), two were identified during this study: P. montanus and P. variegatus. Regarding P. montanus, it has been historically (based on taxonomy from the late 19 th century) described as a complex of 10 subspecies across Europe (Neu et al. 2018). Then, Botosaneanu and Schmid (1973) recognized only three subspecies: P. montanus montanus, Philopotamus montanus insularis McLachlan, 1878 and Philopotamus montanus siculus Hagen, 1860. Then, González and Da Terra (1979) recognized four subspecies of P. montanus for Europe, among which two in France: P. montanus montanus and P. montanus caurelensis (González and Da Terra 1979). The morphological difference of these two subspecies relies on the number and relative size of the spines on the phallus. Until now, no study officially raised any of the subspecies previously mentioned to species rank. We therefore decided to change P. montanus in Lavandier’s dataset to P. montanus montanus. In addition, note that our genetic analyses (PP 387800 and PP 387801) and morphological observations suggest that P. montanus montanus from different regions are highly similar.