Proceedings of 

 the United States 

 National Museum 



SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION • WASHINGTON, D.C. 



Volume 124 1967 Number 3630 



Revision of the Milliped Genus Cleptoria 

 (Polydesmida: Xystodesmidae) 



By Richard L. Hoffman * 



The present paper is concerned with a small group of xystodesmids 

 occurring in Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama. There is no doubt 

 that these forms are closely related and comprise a homogeneous 

 entity. There is, however, a very real problem concerning the formu- 

 lation of an opinion about their relative taxonomic status. As will 

 be subsequently pointed out, it is becoming increasingly difficult 

 to draw suitable definitions for several nominal genera set up for 

 American xystodesmids in recent years, genera that were initially 

 distinct only because they happened to be monotypic or contained 

 only a few species. 



In the present instance, some students of Diplopoda will surely 

 contend that the species here treated as the genus Cleptoria cannot be 

 set off precisely from other groups of southeastern xystodesmids and 

 should at most be given the status of a "species-group." While I 

 admit that this contention is probably a valid one, it seems in the 

 present state of our knowledge that the designation of such groups 

 by a generic name makes it slightly easier to categorize them for 

 convenience in classification. Later, when the fauna has been 

 thoroughly developed and all of the species accounted for, it will 



1 Department of Biology, Radford College, Radford, Va. 



