PROCEEDINGS OF THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



issued 



SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM 

 Vol. 86 Washington: 1938 No. 3043 



THE CAMBALOID MILLIPEDS OF THE UNITED STATES, 

 INCLUDING A FAMILY NEW TO THE FAUNA AND 

 NEW GENERA AND SPECIES 



By H. F. LooMis 



INTRODUCTION 



It is being recognized that the Pacific Coast States, particularly 

 California, have a larger and more varied milliped fauna than is to be 

 found in any like area of the Eastern United States. Indeed, it is 

 possible that there are not more species of millipeds in the entire 

 region east of the Mississippi River. Because of the more accessible 

 territory and the proximity of interested workers, the millipeds of 

 the Eastern States naturally were subjects of study and, as a group, 

 became fairly well known much earlier than did the western ones. 

 Several of the principal papers on millipeds by Wood, Bollman, and 

 Cook and Collins, while national in scope, nevertheless were based 

 primarily on eastern forms, as these were known in much greater 

 abundance; and to this day the majority of papers on western mil- 

 lipeds have consisted of disconnected descriptions of species with 

 scarcely au}^ attempts at treatment of genera or larger groups, and 

 only one or two lists of species in geographic or political areas have 

 appeared. Such papers give some indications of the numbers of 

 millipeds to be found in the West, but in several recent papers ^ the 

 preponderance of western species has been shown more forcibly in 

 direct comparison with the eastern species, and this preponderance 

 is manifest in the present study and others in preparation. 



1 Cook, O. F., and Loomis, FI. P., Millipeds of the order Colobognatha, with descriptions 

 of six new genera and type species, from Arizona and California, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., 

 vol. 72, art. IS, pp. 1-26, 1928. Loomis. H. F., New millipeds of the American family 

 Striariidae, Journ. Washington Acad. Sci., vol. 26, pp. 404-409, 1936. Loomis, H. F., 

 Crested millipeds of the family Lysiopetalidae In North America, with descriptions of 

 new genera and species, Proc. IT. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 84, pp. 97-135, 1937. 



8.5370—38 ^1 27 



