The millipede genus Caucasodesmus Golovatch, 1985, with the description of a new species from the Crimea, Ukraine (Polydesmida, Diplopoda, Trichopolydesmidae)

By

Golovatch, Sergei

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2011

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

93

Pages

1-8

Subjects

cave , Crimea , millipede , new species , taxonomy , Trichopolydesmidae

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.93.1159

 

Abstract

The hitherto monotypic genus Caucasodesmus is new to the Ukrainian list due to the discovery of C. tauricus sp. n. in a cave in the Crimea. The new species is easily distinguished from C. inexpectatus Golovatch, 1985, the type, and only other, known species of this genus, in the abundantly setose collum and following metaterga, and more elaborate gonopods. The status of Caucasodesmus, which shows in the superfamily Trichopolydesmoidea where it definitely belongs such evident generic-level apomorphies as the absence of bacilliform sensilla on antennomeres 5 and 7, of a cannula on the gonocoxite, and of a seminal groove on a biramous gononod telopodite (apparently, both latter characters are functionally correlated to each other), is refined by formally reassigning it to the family Trichopolydesmidae.