ON THE IDENTITY OF THREE GENERA 
OF CAMBALOID MILLIPEDS FROM 
THE AUSTRALIAN REGION (SPIROSTREPTIDA)* 
By Richard L. Hoffman 
Radford College, Radford, Virginia 24141 
In his large and important paper “The Myriapoda of the Aus- 
tralian Region” R. V. Chamberlin (1920) described a great num- 
ber of new genera and species of diplopods in very succinct terms 
and without a single illustration of the male genitalia. As a result 
the majority of these taxa have remained down to the present time 
as frustrating enigmata to other students of Diplopoda and have im- 
peded the orderly development of classification in several orders of 
this class. Inasmuch as the material named by Chamberlin in this 
and many other papers is deposited in the Museum of Comparative 
Zoology, that institution has become something of a Mecca in recent 
years for diplopodologists who have visited it in search for the truth 
that lies concealed behind the veil of Chamberlinian descriptions. 
On recently beginning a study of the world fauna of the milliped 
suborder Cambalidea, I was confronted by the fact that the 1920 
paper contained the debut of 13 new species and three new genera 
of cambaloids from Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, and several 
Pacific island groups. An appeal to Dr. H. W. Levi resulted in the 
prompt and generous loan of typical material representing all three 
of the genera, and since some time may pass before completion of the 
general synopsis of the suborder, it seems desirable to place on rec- 
ord a short account of these taxa for the general benefit of others 
having occasion to work with the milliped fauna of the South Pacific 
area. 
I. Eumastigonus Chamberlin 1920 
Bull. M. C. Z., 64: 162. Type species, E. kaorinus Chamberlin, by original 
designation. 
This genus, proposed for five new species from New Zealand, was 
compared only with Dimerogonus (Attems, 1903), from which it 
was said to differ “. . . in having the first legs of the male with 
strongly developed claws and otherwise also similar to the succeeding 
pairs.” Material of the type species E. kaorinus could not be located 
at the M.C.Z. in 1971 (possibly it was standing under a different 
name, as it was not unusual for Chamberlin to change his mind with- 
*Manuscript received by the editor September 18, 1972 
200 
