A new species ofIllacmeCook & Loomis, 1928 from Sequoia National Park, California, with a world catalog of the Siphonorhinidae (Diplopoda, Siphonophorida).
Members of the family Siphonorhinidae Cook, 1895 are thread-like eyeless millipedes that possess an astounding number of legs, including one individual with 750. Due to their cryptic lifestyle, rarity in natural history collections, and sporadic study over the last century, the family has an unclear phylogenetic placement, and intrafamilial relationships remain unknown. Here we report the discovery of a second species ofIllacme, a millipede genus notable for possessing the greatest number of legs of any known animal on the planet.Illacme tobinisp. n.is described from a single male collected in a cave in Sequoia National Park, California, USA. After 90 years since the description ofIllacme, the species represents a second of the genus in California. Siphonorhinidae now includesIllacmeCook & Loomis, 1928 (two species, USA),KleruchusAttems, 1938 (one species, Vietnam),NematozoniumVerhoeff, 1939 (one species, South Africa) andSiphonorhinusPocock, 1894 (eight species, India, Indonesia, Madagascar, Vietnam).
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Department of Entomology, Price Hall, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA.
Paul E
PE
Marek
Zara Environmental LLC, 1707 W FM 1626, Manchaca, Texas, USA.
Jean K
JK
Krejca
Hampden-Sydney College, Department of Biology, Gilmer Hall, Hampden-Sydney, Virginia, USA.
William A
WA
Shear
California Floristic Province; California interior chaparral and woodlands ecoregion; Kaweah River; Sierra Nevada forest ecoregion; endemic; foothills; marble; mesovoid shallow substratum; paleoendemic