PROCEEDINGS OF THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Vol. 106 Washington : 1956 No. 3362 



REVISION OF THE MILLIPED GENUS DIXIORIA 

 (POLYDESMIDA: XYSTODESMIDAE) 



By Richard L. Hoffman 



Generally speaking, most of the published work on the classification 

 of the diplopods has been either fragmentary or carelessly superficial, 

 often both. This is particularly true in the United States where, 

 except for the valuable work of O. F. Cook and H. F. Loomis, there 

 is only a welter of short papers on millipeds that contain brief and in 

 many cases meaningless descriptions of miscellaneous new forms. 



The prevailing method of treatment apparently has discouraged 

 a number of interested students who have found the confusion too 

 great to overcome. I feel that the time is long overdue for some 

 attempt to assemble and evaluate our present knowledge, and to 

 present it in a form that will be useful to others. 



I have undertaken the preparation of formal taxonomic revisions 

 of certain North American milliped groups, to be pubHshed as available 

 material permits in the form of revisions of genera. Each paper is 

 intended to be as thorough as possible with the material at hand, and 

 in some cases the results compare favorably ^\^th published studies 

 of many vertebrate groups. The family Xystodesmidae is selected 

 as a starting point because it is rich in genera and species as well as 



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