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| Figure 1.: Habitus photographs. B Eutrichodesmus deporatus sp. n., a male ecological photo from Cave Tham Pathok, sublateral view C E. paraster sp. n., male holotype (SMF) from Cave Tham Long Puang, lateral view D E. parvus sp. n., male paratype (ZFMK) from Cave Tham Nam Long, lateral view. |
Abstract
Laos has large areas of primary forest with a largely unexplored fauna. This is evidenced by millipedes, class Diplopoda, with fewer than 60 species being recorded from the country. In the widespread Southeast Asian “Star Millipede” genus Eutrichodesmus Silvestri, 1910 (family Haplodesmidae), only two of 49 recorded species have been found in Laos. Four new species of Star Millipedes are here described from caves in Laos: Eutrichodesmus steineri Liu & Wesener, sp. n., E. deporatus Liu & Wesener, sp. n., E. paraster Liu & Wesener, sp. n. and E. parvus Liu & Wesener, sp. n.. A fifth species, for which only a female is available, remains unnamed. The defensive glands (ozopores) are found to be strongly or entirely suppressed in two of the new species, E. deporatus Liu & Wesener, sp. n. and E. paraster Liu & Wesener, sp. n., both troglobionts, which is new to the family. All of the Star Millipedes were collected during Northern Lao-European Cave Project faunal surveys conducted by the Senckenberg Museum, Frankfurt. A key to the six species of Eutrichodesmus currently known to occur in Laos is provided.
Keywords: Millipede, reduced ozopores, biodiversity, taxonomy, cave adaptation, Laos
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| Figure 1.: Habitus photographs. A Eutrichodesmus steineri sp. n., male paratype (SMF) from Cave Tham Dout, ventrolateral view B E. deporatus sp. n., a male ecological photo from Cave Tham Pathok, sublateral view C E. paraster sp. n., male holotype (SMF) from Cave Tham Long Puang, lateral view D E. parvus sp. n., male paratype (ZFMK) from Cave Tham Nam Long, lateral view. |
Weixin Liu, Sergei Golovatch and Thomas Wesener. 2017. Four New Species of the Millipede Genus Eutrichodesmus Silvestri, 1910 from Laos, Including Two with Reduced Ozopores (Diplopoda, Polydesmida, Haplodesmidae). ZooKeys. 660: 43-65. DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.660.11780
