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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).
Ptyoiulus Cook 1895, the dominant parajulid diplopod genus in the eastern United States (US), comprises two species – P. impressus (Say 1821), with a slanted, fl ared, circumferentially entire, and marginally serrate apical calyx on the anterior gonopod coxal process, and P. montanus (Cope 1869), n. comb., with a smooth, upright, cupulate calyx that is open caudad and coaxial with the process’ stem. The genus occupies a broad area between the Mississippi River and Atlantic Ocean extending from southern New England, Ontario, and Michigan to the Florida Panhandle and four small disjunct ones – from Montreal, Québec, to northern Vermont, along southwestern Lake Michigan in Wisconsin and Illinois; northeastern/eastcentral Arkansas, primarily in Crowley’s Ridge physiographic feature and beside the “bootheel” of Missouri; and a point locality in northeastern Louisiana just south of the Arkansas line. A male from Chester County (Co.), Pennsylvania, is designated as the neotype of Julus impressus, as is one from Durham Co., North Carolina, for J. montanus. As both species inhabit Montgomery Co., Virginia, the type locality of J. montanus, we exercise the right of first reviser, conserve the latter name, and assign it to the species with the smooth, cupulate, and coaxial calyx. We also exercise first reviser rights and assign Parajulus ectenes Bollman 1887 to this form, thereby relegating it to synonymy under Ptyoiulus montanus. Other new synonymies include Ptyoiulus georgiensis Chamberlin 1943 under P. impressus and P. coveanus Chamberlin 1943 under P. montanus. Both Ptyoiulus and P. impressus are projected for Delaware and Rhode Island and newly reported from Québec, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Maryland, Mississippi, South Carolina, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, and the genus and species, respectively, are newly documented from Louisiana and Arkansas; P. montanus is newly cited from Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina. Ptyoiulus impressus occupies every state except perhaps Louisiana and is the only species in areas that were inundated during the Cretaceous and glaciated during the Pleistocene; by contrast, P. montanus inhabits a relatively narrow east/west transect through the center of the generic range. Their distribution patterns suggest an old species, montanus, being actively displaced by the younger and more successful impressus. The decurvature of the epiproct in uroblaniulinines appears to increase with age and developmental stage. A key is presented to parajulid familygroup taxa in the US and Canada east of the Rocky Mountains.
Parajulid milliped studies XI : Initial assessment of the tribe Gosiulini (Diplopoda: Julida)
(2016)
The parajulid milliped tribe Gosiulini (Diplopoda: Julida) comprises two genera – Gosiulus Chamberlin, with three projections on the posterior gonopod and two species in the southcentral/southwestern United States (US) [Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas], and monotypic Minutissimiulus Shelley, n. gen., with two projections, in Nuevo León, Mexico. Gosiulus conformatus Chamberlin occupies the plains/fl atlands of Texas, while its congener inhabits high elevations to the west in all four US states. Both are anticipated in Mexico (Coahuila, Chihuahua, and Sonora), and G. conformatus is expected in southeastern Colorado, eastern New Mexico, and the Oklahoma panhandle. The eastern boundary of G. conformatus and the genus/tribe conforms to the western border of the Piney Woods biome in eastern Texas. As shown by the posterior gonopod drawing in the original description, Parajulus timpius Chamberlin, previously considered of “uncertain generic position or validity,” is unquestionably the oldest name for the western species. The anteriormost posterior gonopod projection, absent from Minutissimiulus, is considered the “prefemoral process,” while the “solenomere” and a third branch arise from a common base.
Because of positional homology with “process ‘C’” in Nesoressini, the last projection is accorded this name, which may also apply to the “prefemoral process” in Aniulini. Minutissimiulus biramus Shelley, n. sp., is proposed along with the following new subjective synonymies: Apacheiulus Loomis under Gosiulus; Ziniulus aethes and Z. medicolens, both by Chamberlin, and Z. ambiguus and Z. nati, both by Loomis, under G. conformatus; and A. pinalensis and A. guadelupensis, both by Loomis, under G. timpius, new combination. Ziniulus navajo Chamberlin becomes an objective synonym of P. timpius because its holotype is designated neotype of the latter. Minutissimiulus biramus Shelley is the fi rst Mexican gosiuline and “mainland” Mexican parajulid not in the tribe Parajulini.
Pandirodesmus rutherfordi, n. sp., represented by 18 individuals including eight adult males, occurs in secondary forests near Charlotteville and Speyside, Tobago, Trinidad and Tobago. Along with the type and second species, P. disparipes Silvestri, from Guyana and known only from females, the segmental legs of P. rutherfordi alternate between long (anterior pairs) and short (posterior ones), spiracular openings are on straw-like tubules, and ozopores are located on paramedian metatergal spines. These features appear to be adaptations for biotopes of loose sand, detritus, or frass, and 17 specimens, including the six juveniles, exhibit coatings of “sand grains” that are loosely cemented together and to the smooth, translucent, grayish-white exoskeleton. The tubules and spines elevate the spiracles and ozopores above the coating, thereby ensuring that they remain open and functional.
The coating, which provides camoufl age and lends strength and rigidity to the poorly sclerotized exoskeleton, is a subuniform “pavement” that covers the entire animal except the labrum/clypeus, tarsal and antennal apices, prozonae, paraprocts, and the gonopods in males. Ramose/dendritic setae, particularly on narrowly rounded podo-/antennomeres, trap “sand grains,” and the ozopore secretions apparently constitute the “glue” that cements the coating, as evidenced circumstantially by layers of “sand” between the spines on the anterior metaterga, where they are physically closest. The alternating segmental leg lengths, in part due to differing ventrolateral and ventromedial origins, appear to be an adaptation for lateral/sideways motion in which the long (anterior) legs extend laterally and pull the body to the level of the short (posterior) ones, which continue the motion while the anterior legs extend to begin the next stroke. The opposing legs perform the complementary pushing motion a fraction after the long legs initiate the pulling stroke and hence are slightly and purposefully out of sync. An adult male paratype lacks the coating, probably because it had just molted and lacked time to amass it; the juvenile female paratype of P. disparipes also is “naked,” as was, according to Silvestri, the now lost adult female holotype. Until fresh material is collected, coatings cannot be confi rmed for P. disparipes even though it shares the anatomical modifi cations that seem adaptions for such. The minute, triramous gonotelopodites of P. rutherfordi are unlike any known for a chelodesmid, so the current generic placement, in a monotypic tribe in the nominate chelodesmid subfamily, is retained. With species in both South America and the southern Antilles, Pandirodesmus/ini had to exist on both the “proto-Antillean” terrane and the adjoining part of Pangaean Gondwana before the former rifted in the Cretaceous/Paleocene, ~66 million years ago, and P. rutherfordi is a remnant of the former population that became isolated on present-day Tobago when the terrane fragmented. Affi nity between Guyanan and southern Antillean platyrhacid millipeds (Polydesmida: Leptodesmidea) suggest that Pandirodesmus/ini may occur sporadically as far north in the island chain as St. Lucia.
A trimaculate male of the diplopod genus Apheloria Chamberlin (Polydesmida: Xystodesmidae/-inae: Apheloriini) from 1.3 km (0.8 mi) west of McKenney, Dinwiddie County (Co.), Virginia, is designated the Neotype of Julus virginiensis Drury 1770, thereby stabilizing the earliest name for a North American milliped and authenticating its prior assignment to this taxon. The existing concept of Apheloria is accepted in the absence of a revisionary treatment, and a modern description of A. v. virginiensis with gonopod drawings and color photos is provided. Drury’s original account and his letter to the Virginian who sent him the original specimens are quoted verbatim to eliminate future library searches. The specific name has been associated with at least three genera, and its confusing history is clarified by summarizing works in each. Authentic localities, mapped to the extent now possible, reveal a distribution south of the James River in piedmont and coastal Virginia that extends southwestward to the Blue Ridge foothills and at least as far south in North Carolina (NC) as Greensboro, the “Triangle” (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill region), and Albemarle Sound in the east. Based on the holotypes, A. aspila and A. tigana, both by Chamberlin, are placed in synonymy under A. v. virginiensis (syns. nov.), and although its status is still under review, A. waccamana Chamberlin, whose type locality is Lake Waccamaw, Columbus Co., in southeastern NC, may be the correct name for today’s A. tigana. All samples so labeled must be reexamined for misidentifications of A. v. virginiensis.
A newly discovered population of Xystocheir brachymacris Shelley, 1996 (Polydesmida: Xystodesmidae: Xystocheirini), in Placer County (Co.), California, exhibits an unusual grayish-black color dorsally with mottled, ovoid patches at paranotal bases; it cons titutes northern generic and specifi c range extensions of ~28.4 km (17.6 mi). The gonopods differ from those in the El Dorado Co. population in having shorter/acuminate prefemoral processes and blade-like, rather than spatulate, processes “B” that angle away from the solenomere instead of overhanging it. Additionally, a strong distomedial prefemoral lobe, absent from the El Dorado population, arises from the stem in Placer Co. males. Authorship of Xystocheirini is properly attributed to Hoffman, 1980.
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!
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.
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.
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.