Review of the Spirobolida on Madagascar
with Descriptions of Twelve New Genera
ZooKeys No, 19

By Thomas Wesener, et al.
December 2009
Pensoft
ISBN: 9789546425065
128 pages
$72.50 Paper Original

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This issue of Zookeys deals with millipedes from Madagascar, an understudied group from a still little understood place. Here presented are the findings of a 2007 expedition as well as the results from general inventory programs undertaken on Madagascar in the last 10 years. From Madagascar, only three genera of the order Spirobolida were previously known, most of them described more than 100 years ago.

To our great surprise the newly collected material included more than 37 undescribed species and no less than 12 new genera, of which 11 are exclusively based on newly discovered species. All species are endemic to Madagascar. The family Spirobolellidae is for the first time recorded from Madagascar with one endemic genus, while all other 14 known genera belong to the family Pachybolidae.

Therefore, more genera of Pachybolidae are now known from Madagascar than from continental Africa and India combined. Up to six different Spirobolida genera occur sympatric in the same forest. Three of the discovered genera contain large-bodied species with a conspicuous pitch-black\blood-red colour pattern, the so-called ‘Fire Millipedes’

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