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Type: Article
Published: 2014-09-16
Page range: 363–368
Abstract views: 24
PDF downloaded: 2

The identity of Australia's northern-most giant pill-millipedes (Diplopoda, Sphaerotheriida)

Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig, Leibniz Institute for Animal Biodiversity, Center for Taxonomy and Evolutionary Research (Section Myriapoda), Adenauerallee 160, 53113 Bonn, Germany.
Torres Strait Somerset Zephronia Cyliosoma taxonomic redescription

Abstract

The redescription of the lectotype of Zephronia larvalis Butler, 1878, from the Torres Strait islands between Australia and Papua-New Guinea, shows that it does not represent a member of the SE Asian Zephroniidae, but is a species of the Australian genus Cyliosoma of the Cyliosomatidae, C. larvalis new combination. The syntypes of Cyliosoma albertisii (Silvestri, 1895; Cyliosomatidae), Australia's northern-most Sphaerotheriida species described from Somerset (close to the Torres Strait islands), were restudied, and a lectotype was selected. C. albertisii is discovered to be a junior synonym of C. larvalis (Butler, 1878). C. larvalis, originally described as Zephronia larvalis, clearly belongs to the genus Cyliosoma, but displays some characters, such as a high number (25–30) of apical cones on the antennae, and the reduction of the spine-like projection of the stigmatic plates, that are unique in the genus and family. This synonymy confirms the Torres Strait giant pill-millipede fauna to be an Australian element, and not the first representative of a still undiscovered Papua-New Guinean fauna.