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With documentation of an unidentifiable adult female and juvenile Tingupidae (Chordeumatida), Kodiak Island, Alaska, becomes the westernmost indigenous diplopod locality in North America including continental islands. The northernmost and most proximate locality, Yakutat, lies ca. 935 mi (1,496 km) to the eastnortheast, while Haines, the type locality of Tingupa tlingitorum Shear and Shelley, some 1,196 mi (1,914 km) in this direction, is the most proximate familial site. Kodiak is also one of the most remote indigenous milliped localities in the Pacific, the most proximate ones to the west and south, Kamchatka, Russia, and the Hawaiian Islands, United States, being over 3,300 mi (5, 280 km) distant. Tingupidae is recorded for the first time from Canada excluding the Queen Charlotte Islands, and geographically remote, ostensibly indigenous records from the North Pacific Ocean and environs are tabulated.
The class Diplopoda, represented by the families Spirostreptidae (Spirostreptida) and Paradoxosomatidae (Polydesmida), is recorded from Saudi Arabia for the first time. Archispirostreptus transmarinus Hoffman, 1965 (Spirostreptidae) inhabits the Jabal Al-Hijaz Mountains in the southwest, and the Paradoxosomatidae, represented by an unidentifiable, indigenous female, occurs in a “wadi” in the center of the country. Other Middle Eastern familial records are documented, and occurrences in the Arabian Peninsula are mapped. Males, necessary to identify the paradoxosomatid, may be encountered if samplings are timed to coincide with seasonal rains.
Localities are documented for the milliped Abacion texense (Loomis, 1837) (Callipodida: Abacionidae) whose distribution forms both the northern and southern ordinal limits in the Western Hemisphere. The westernmost component of Abacion Rafinesque, 1820, A. texense is the only milliped species whose range spans the Mississippi and Pecos rivers and the Rio Grande. Distribution extremes are in Hennepin County (Co.), Minnesota, in the north; Terrell and Potter cos., Texas, in the west; Alcorn Co., Mississippi, in the east; and southwestern Tamaulipas, Mexico, in the south. Occurrences are projected for southeastern South Dakota, northwestern Alabama, and the southwestern periphery of Tennessee. The type series of A. texense consists solely of the male holotype, so a neotype will be needed if this individual is ever lost, because no paratypes were officially designated.
Hiltonius carpinus carpinus Chamberlin, 1943 (Spirobolida: Spirobolidae), is authoritatively recorded from the United States for the first time; it is known only from southern/southeastern Arizona but should be expected in adjoining counties of New Mexico. The northernmost locality is the Pinaleno Mountains, Graham County, and its distribution extends to southern Mexico; the other subspecies, H. c. vulcan (Chamberlin, 1953), occurs in Guatemala. The range of H. c. carpinus includes the type locality of the enigmatic H. fossulifer (Pocock, 1908), lending credence to prior suggestions that the names are synonymous. Three new Mexican states – Durango, Jalisco, and Nuevo León – are documented for H. c. carpinus.
The biogeographic significance of Diplopoda is substantiated by 50 maps documenting indigenous occurrences of the 16 orders, the three Spirostreptida s. l. suborders – Cambalidea, Epinannolenidea, Spirostreptidea – and all higher taxa including Diplopoda itself. The class is indigenous to all continents except Antarctica and islands/archipelagos in all temperate and tropical seas and oceans except the Arctic; it ranges from Kodiak Island and the northern Alaskan Panhandle, United States (USA), southern Hudson Bay, Canada, and near or north of the Arctic Circle in Iceland, continental Scandinavia, and Siberia to southern “mainland” Argentina, the southern tips of Africa and Tasmania, and Campbell Island, subantarctic New Zealand. The vast, global distribution is interrupted by sizeable, poorly- or unsampled areas including the Great Basin, USA; the Atacama Desert region of Chile and neighboring countries; southern South American islands; the central Kalahari and Sahara deserts; the Gobi Desert, Mongolia, and all of north-central and western China; from north of the Caspian Sea, Russia, to central Kazakhstan; and the “Outback” of central Australia. Five Arabian countries lack both samples and published records of indigenous diplopods – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates – as do Turks and Caicos, in the New World, and Mauritania and possibly Egypt, Africa. New records, including the first for Chilognatha from Botswana and the first specific localities from Northern Territory, Australia, are cited in the Appendix. Increased emphasis on mappings in taxonomic research is warranted along with investigations of insular “species swarms” that constitute a microcosm of the early evolution of the class. The largest “species swarm” in the Diplopoda is Diplopoda itself!
The southern Appalachian millipeds Boraria stricta (Brölemann, 1896) and B. infesta (Chamberlin, 1918) (Diplopoda: Polydesmida: Xystodesmidae) have become established in Westchester Co., New York, and Hartford Co., Connecticut, respectively. Only three individuals are available for the latter, but B. stricta has established a reproducing population in southern New York state. This species is also recorded from Bland Co., Virginia, in the Ridge and Valley Physiographic Province. Boraria profuga (Causey, 1955) comprises two allopatric populations, one in Montgomery Co., Arkansas, and the other in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana. Distributional records and gonopod drawings are presented for these species plus B. deturkiana (Causey, 1942).
Four milliped species, substantiated by preserved voucher samples, are reported from Prince Edward Island, Canada. All are introduced European species that now occur widely in both Canada and the United States, and the panglobal Asian paradoxosomatid, Oxidus gracilis (C. L. Koch, 1847), is listed as probable. Choneiulus palmatus (Némec, 1895) (Julida: Blaniulidae) is newly recorded from New Brunswick, and four representatives of the Julidae are cited from Nova Scotia. Discovery of Cylindroiulus punctatus (Leach, 1815) (Julidae) in this province constitutes the second record from both Canada and North America, the other being in Newfoundland.
The taxonomically neglected milliped order Glomeridesmida and family Glomeridesmidae (infraclass
Pentazonia, superorder Limacomorpha) inhabit 21, rather than seven, regions of the world, being newly recorded
from Thailand; Cambodia; the Republics of Palau, the Philippines, and Vanuatu; New Britain, Bismarck Archipelago;
the Island of New Guinea (both West Papua [formerly Irian Jaya], Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea);
and Sulawesi and Borneo, Indonesia. Occurrence in Fiji is confirmed with two additional samples, and discovery is
predicted in southern China, Myanmar, and perhaps Madagascar. Coupled with published localities, these records
suggest subcontinuous (super)ordinal and familial ranges extending some 12,480 km (7,800 mi) southeastward from
northwestern Thailand to Fiji. Though infrequently encountered, the taxa may actually be diverse and abundant
within this area, which encompasses all of the Indochina and Malay peninsulas, the Philippines, Palau, the Island
of Borneo and Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon and Santa Cruz Islands, Vanuatu, and Fiji; it excludes
Taiwan, Australia, New Caledonia, and the Loyalty Islands. The paucity of preserved individuals probably results
from their dark pigmentations and minute sizes, adults being <6.5 mm long; Berlese extractions and sieved litter
techniques are recommended over hand collecting. Glomeridesmida are much more continuous, widespread, and
abundant in the “east” than previously believed and clearly do not comprise a minor, insignificant taxon. The first
glomeridesmidan photos are published.
The diplopod orders Callipodida and Polydesmida, and their respective families Abacionidae and
Xystodesmidae, are initially recorded from South Dakota as is Polydesmidae from North Dakota. Other new records of
indigenous taxa include Abacion Rafinesque, 1820/A. texense (Loomis, 1937) and Pleuroloma/P. flavipes, both by
Rafinesque, 1820, from South Dakota, and Pseudopolydesmus Attems, 1898/P. serratus (Say, 1821) from Alabama,
Connecticut, Delaware, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia. New records of
Aniulus garius Chamberlin, 1912, A. (Hakiulus) d. diversifrons (Wood, 1867), and Oriulus venustus (Wood, 1864)
(Julida: Parajulidae) are provided for western Minnesota and/or eastern North Dakota. Published records from these
states are summarized, and the introduced taxa, Julidae/Cylindroiulus Verhoeff, 1894/C. caeruleocinctus (Wood, 1864)
and Paradoxosomatidae/Oxidus Cook, 1911/O. gracilis (C. L. Koch, 1847), are newly recorded from the Dakotas. The
distribution of P. serratus, which extends from Maine to South Carolina and the Florida panhandle, west to Texas, and
north to Fargo, North Dakota is described and discussed. This distribution exhibits a prominent southeastern lacuna
which we hypothesize suggests replacement by younger, more successful species, as postulated for a similar distributional
gap in Scytonotus granulatus (Say, 1821).
The chilopod, Cryptops hortensis (Donovan, 1810) (Scolopendromorpha: Cryptopidae), and the diplopods, Pseudospirobolellus avernus (Butler, 1876) (Spirobolida: Pseudospirobolellidae) and Oxidus gracilis (C. L. Koch, 1847) (Polydesmida: Paradoxosomatidae), are newly recorded from Saba Island, Lesser Antilles, which also harbors one additional scolopendromorph and four more chilognath millipeds. Except for the plausibly native scolopendrid centipede, Scolopendra alternans Leach, 1813, all are human introductions. Concentrated sampling is needed in the cloud/elfin forest atop Mt. Scenery, where indigenous millipeds may reside, and with extraction techniques throughout the island, to potentially document the diplopod subclass Penicillata. Nine small Caribbean islands in addition to Saba have been incorrectly reported as lacking diplopod records because publications citing them were overlooked by past authors. Works documenting myriapods from small Caribbean islands are consolidated.