A strikingly coloured new giant millipede from Vietnam has copycat in Borneo (Diplopoda, Spirostreptida, Harpagophoridae)

  • Piyatida Pimvichai Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Mahasarakham University, Mahasarakham 44150, Thailand.
  • Nesrine Akkari Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, Burgring 7, 1010 Vienna, Austria.
  • Irina Semenyuk A.N. Severtsov Institute for Problems of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky pr. 33, Moscow 119071, Russia.
  • Jerôme Constant Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, O.D. Taxonomy & Phylogeny – Entomology, Vautier street 29, B-1000 Brussels, Belgium.
  • Henrik Enghoff Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5852/ejt.2020.722.1129
Keywords: new species, Southeast Asia, taxonomy

Abstract

A new giant species of the subfamily Rhynchoproctinae with strikingly bi-coloured, red-yellow legs contrasting with a black body is described: Alienostreptus bicoloripes sp. nov. from Vietnam. The new species is assigned to the genus Alienostreptus Pimvichai, Enghoff & Panha, 2010 hitherto comprising one species, A. alienus (Attems, 1936), and differing from other rhynchoproctine genera by having the femoral spine duplicated. Species of this genus share three synapomorphic characters of the subfamily, viz (1) anterior coxal fold forms deep concavity in posterior view, (2) posterior coxal fold very low, and (3) posterior coxal fold with mesal flap. A superficially very similar colourful species from Borneo, also with bi-coloured legs but clearly not belonging to Alienostreptus due to the position of ventral soft pads on male legs, is documented based on photographs.

References

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Published
2020-10-20
How to Cite
Pimvichai, P., Akkari, N., Semenyuk, I., Constant, J., & Enghoff, H. (2020). A strikingly coloured new giant millipede from Vietnam has copycat in Borneo (Diplopoda, Spirostreptida, Harpagophoridae). European Journal of Taxonomy, 722(1), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.5852/ejt.2020.722.1129
Issue
Vol. 722 (2020)
Section
Research article

Copyright (c) 2020 Piyatida Pimvichai, Nesrine Akkari, Irina Semenyuk, Jerôme Constant, Henrik Enghoff

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