H. F. Loomis.
A New Cuban Milliped, with Notes and Drawings of Other West Indian Species.
Psyche 48(1):35-39, 1941.

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New Caban Milliped
A NEW CUBAN MILLIPED, WITH NOTES AND
DRAWINGS OF OTHER WEST INDIAN
SPECIES
BY H. F. LOOMIS
Bureau of Plant Industry
U. S. Department of Agriculture
In June, 1940, the writer visited the Museum of Com- parative Zoology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, to examine certain type and other specimens of millipeds in the col- lection there. In the material seen was a recently received Cuban species of Amphelictogon, obviously differing from other known members of the genus.
A description of this
species follows.
Also the opportunity is taken for presenting drawings made from a number of R, V. Chamberlinys types of West Indian millipeds, especially those in the genus Amphelic- togon, where the difficulty of distinguishing the species without reference to illustrations of the gonopods has been found very great or, in certain cases, impossible. A species described by C. H. Bollman which, for over 50 years, has erroneously reposed in the family Platyrha- cidz is here transferred to another family where a new generic name is proposed to admit it.
Amphelictogon cubanus Chamberlin
Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. 52, No. 5, p. 224, 1918. This is the only known member of the genus having the dorsal surface of its segments divided into definite quadrate or polygonal areas. A gonopod of the type is shown in figure d of the plate.
Amphelictogon bahamiensis Chamberlin
Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. 52, No. Sy p. 231, 1918. The type and only known specimen of this species is



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36 Psyche [March
approximately 15 mm. long. One of its gonopods is shown in figure b of the plate.
Amphelictogon rex sp. nov.
In the Museum of Comparative Zoology collection are three males? including the type, collected in the Sierra de Nipe? Cayo del Rey? Oriente Province, Cuba? April 1940? by J. P. Carabia.
Diagnosis: This species belongs in the series with color differences between the poriferous and non-poriferous seg- ments. Its closest relatives appear to be A. obscurus Chamberlin and A. bidens Loomis but with obvious differ- ences from them in coloration and modifications of the gonopods.
Description: Length 30 mm. ; width 4.5 mm. across pos- terior margins of segments I and 2 ; 4 mm. across the middle of the body which is parallel-sided to about segrnent 15, after which it narrows to the last segment.
In alcohol the head is dark brown except for the narrow white anterior margin; antennze with basal joints light colored, the outer joints dark brown; legs and ventral surface of all segments white; segments I to 4 dark brownish-black except the pure white posterior corners ; poriferous segments from the fifth to the penultimate have the prozonites brown with a large white spot in front of the keels, reaching nearly to the middle of the dorsum; meta- zonites with the keels and sides of the dorsum white, only the median line dark brown ; non-poriferous segments have the sides and dorsum of the prozonites dark brown meta- zonites dark brown, except the outer two-thirds of the keels, which are white; last segment brown at base, white at apex. Surface of segments shining? the keels with two or three small granules? each with a tiny pit at middle from which a seta may once have projected; segments 2 to 8 with a
tooth at the anterior corner of each keel; posterior margin of most keels from segment 5 to segment 16 with two teeth, the outer of which is largest; margins of poriferous keels raised above the inner surface of the keel, the elevation most evident at the rounded anterior corner ; pore callus elongate, formed by the gradual thickening of the margin, the pore opening obliquely outward and upward.




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19411 New Cuban Milliped 37
Preanal scale rather thick? broadly rounded behind? with a tiny supplementary projection at middle of posterior margin.
Gonopod as shown in figure a of the plate. Sternum between the third legs narrow, high? almost hemispherical and with a considerable number of erect setae ; sterna between the fourth and fifth legs higher and with more erect setae than the third sternum. Schizodira gen. nov.
Type Stenonia maculata Bollman? Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus.? Vol. 117 p. 336? 1888.
Syn. Plat yrachus ? maculutus (Bollman) Chamberlin, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zo01.~ Vol. 62, No. 5? p. 216? 1918. Review of the original description convinces me that this species cannot possibly belong in the Platyrhacidae where Bollman and subsequent writers placed it. Bollman com- pared maculata with Stenonia fimbriuta (Peters) but it appears that either he never had seen Peters7 species or he misinterpreted the original description of it7 for it is certain that fimbriata, made the genotype of Tirodesmus by Cook in Brandtia, p. 517 1896? is not related generically7 at least, to maculata.
I know of no species of Platyrhacidze as small as macu- latu, and none of this family has an expanded, wenate? front margin on the first segment, completely hiding the head from above? nor does the body have a pronounced longitudinal median line. These characters7 however? are found in the Chytodesmidze and Stiodesmid~ but in the description of maculata there is given no character indicating in which of these families it should be placed. Nevertheless? Bollman7s inclusion of it in the genus Stenonia7 which he later dis- tinguished in two keys on the position of the pores? allows the inference that the pores of maculata are on the dorsal surface? removed from the lateral margin of the keels? a character placing the species in the Chyt~desmidze~ rather than in the Stiodesmidze which has pores on special pro- cesses of the margins of the keels. As no other chytodesmid genus has a notch between the third and fourth crenation from the posterior corner of the first segment, the generic



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38 Psyche [March
name, Schizodira, in reference to this character, is proposed for combination with maculata. Other diagnostic characters may be found in Bollman's statement "lateral carinae crenu- late, the first six, the eighth, eleventh and fourteenth, with two crenulations, the rest with three,'' although it is probable that he actually meant segments 2-6, 8, I1 and 14, as seg- ment 1 had previously been described as having 12 crena- tions. The pores apparently were in the normal sequence on segments 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15-19.
This species has not been rediscovered since Bollman's time and several hasty searches through the disorganized milliped collection of the U. S. National Museum have failed to reveal the specimens Bollman deposited there. a7 Amphelictogon rex : Gonopod ; b, Amphelictogon bahamiensk Chamberlin7 Go,nopod; c7 Amphelictogon pallidipes Chamberlin7 Gono- pod ; d7 Amphelictogon cubanus Chamberlin, Gonopod ; e, Amphelic- togon rubripes Chamberlin7 Gonopod; f7 Caraibodesmus bruesi Cham- berlin7 Gonopod ; g, Cubodesmus ramsdeni Chamberlin, Gonopomd ; h, Cubodesmus pelopleurus Chamberlin? Gonopod. All drawings made from type specimens.




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19411 New Cuban Millipecl 39
PSYCHE, 1941
VOL. 48, PLATE IV.
Loomis - West Indian Millipeds




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