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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.
Tynommatidae, n. stat., elevated from Tynommatinae, is established as a schizopetalidean family encompassing the western North American callipodidans previously assigned to the Mediterranean Schizopetalidae. It is considered a valid taxon despite somewhat anatomically dissimilar subfamilies, and Colactidinae, Texophoninae, Diactidinae, and Aspidiophoninae constitute tribal elevations and additional new statuses. With a subbasal telopodal prefemoral process, Diactis hedini, n. sp., requires rediagnoses of all three diactidine genera, Diactis Loomis, 1937, and Florea and Caliactis, both by Shelley, 1996, and suggests that telopodal branches ‘B’ in congeners and Florea represent distal relocations of the process along the stem. Similarities in the sizes and shapes of the pleurotergal carinae suggest a sister-group relationship with the other, and partly sympatric, New World family, Abacionidae, which is supported by gonopodal similarities between Colactidinae and Abacion Rafi nesque, 1820. The Western Interior Seaway of the Cretaceous Period, Mesozoic Era, ~141–66 million years ago, appears to have fueled divergence by isolating “proto-abacionid stock” in “Appalachia,” the Eastern North American land mass, which has subsequently spread well into previously inundated areas. The allopatric position of Texophoninae, on the Gulf Coast of south Texas around 1,136 km (710 mi) east of the most proximate familial records, is attributed to this waterway, which eradicated faunal linkages with “proto-Tynommatidae” in “Laramidia,” the Western North American land mass. Texophoninae probably survived the Cretaceous on insular refugia; however, it is rarely encountered anymore and seems destined for imminent extinction. Representatives of the east-Asian families, Caspiopetalidae, Paracortinidae, and Sinocallipodidae, also possess demarcated pleurotergal crests and, implausible though it seems, may share ancestry with the North American taxa vis-à-vis the “Asiamerica” and or “Boreotropic” concepts.
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 milliped genus Euryurus Koch, 1847, and the species, E. leachii (Gray, 1832) (Polydesmida: Euryuridae), are recorded from three sites on the northern part of Crowley’s Ridge (Cross, Lee, and Poinsett counties), Arkansas, where the only prior familial records are of Auturus evides (Bollman, 1887). Coupled with the published locality of E. leachii in Phillips Co., at the southern extremity of the Ridge, the only known occurrences of both the genus and species in Arkansas and west of the Mississippi River are in this physiographic feature. The Arkansas population is geographically peripheral but anatomically intermediate between the two recognized subspecies, E. l. leachii and E. l. fraternus Hoffman, 1978, and we do not assign it to a race. Molecular investigations seem necessary to resolve relationships in the “E. leachii complex.”
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.
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.
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.
Scolopendra morsitans L., 1758, is documented from Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaiian Islands, the fi rst record of this anthropochoric chilopod from both the archipelago and state. Hawaii thus becomes the second American state to harbor the species, the other being Florida, where an individual has been taken in Jacksonville, Duval County. Meristic and morphological data are presented for three Hawaiian specimens. At least two other species of Scolopendra, both introduced, occur on these islands: S. polymorpha Wood, 1861, known only from one specimen from Oahu, and one or more representatives of the “S. subspinipes Leach, 1815, complex,” which is widespread and even inhabits Midway Atoll.