Cave Diplopoda of southern China with reference to millipede diversity in Southeast Asia

Abstract

The diversity of Diplopoda in caves of southern China is remarkably high, often 5–6 species per cave, consisting mostly of local endemics and presumed troglobionts. These are evidently biased to just a few lineages, mainly members of the orders Chordeumatida and Callipodida, the families Cambalopsidae (Spirostreptida) and Haplodesmidae (Polydesmida) or the genera Pacidesmus, Epanerchodus and Glenniea (all Polydesmida, Polydesmidae), Trichopeltis (Polydesmida, Cryptodesmidae), Dexmoxytes (Polydesmida, Paradoxosomatidae) and Hyleoglomeris (Glomerida, Glomeridae). All these taxa, especially the Paradoxosomatidae and Cambalopsidae (usually amounting to about 60% and 10% of the total species diversity in the Oriental fauna, respectively), are moderately to highly speciose across Southeast Asia, being largely epigean. However, the epigean Diplopoda of southern China are yet badly understudied, since much of the collecting and taxonomic exploration efforts still focus on cavernicoles. The Oriental Region is the only biogeographic realm globally that harbours all 16 orders of Diplopoda, of which 14 have already been encountered in China and/or the immediately adjacent parts of Indochina. Thus, China may actually prove to support no less than 1,000 millipede species of various origins, mainly Oriental and Palaearctic.

Distribution, diversity patterns and faunogenesis of the millipedes (Diplopoda) of the Himalayas

“…Eventually, that paper represents one of the most consistent, but no less unsuccessful attempts at uncritically combining the landscape-typological (= zonal) and faunogenetic approaches to biogeography which, however, must be clearly separated at least as regards the biotas of older biomes (e.g. Chernov 1975, Golovatch 2015b). To reiterate Chernov (1975) briefly, from the “viewpoint” of a biome or more local landscape it only matters whether the constituent species properly function as its biotic elements, regardless of their origins.…”

Two new species of the millipede family Cambalopsidae from Myanmar (Diplopoda, Spirostreptida)

“…These will certainly concern Diplopoda as well. Because Cambalopsidae are especially diverse and common in karsts of the adjacent parts of China, Laos, Thailand and Malaysia, where they are usually associated with bat guano in caves (Golovatch 2015), the same presumption can easily be extended to the karsts of Myanmar, too.…”

Occurrence of the millipede genus Tonkinosoma Jeekel, 1953 in China, with the description of the first presumed troglobitic species of this genus (Diplopoda, Polydesmida, Paradoxosomatidae)

“…Firstly, the huge family Paradoxosomatidae only rarely occurs in caves, with only few presumably troglobitic species. The only exceptions are in the large genus Desmoxytes Chamberlin, 1923, which is very common both in epigean and subterranean environments across southeast Asia and China, and in the small genus Piccola Attems, 1953, with a few epigean species in Vietnam and Laos, and a single troglobitic one from Guangxi, China (Liu and Tian 2013; Golovatch 2015b). Secondly, biogeographically the situation concerning the distribution pattern of Tonkinosoma strongly resembles that not only of Piccola , but of still another millipede genus, i.e., Pacidesmus Golovatch, 1991 (Polydesmida, Polydesmidae).…”