Conotylidae, Cook, 1896

Shelley, Rowland M., Medrano, Michael F., Shear, William A., Ovaska, Kristiina, White, Ken J. & Havard, Erin I., 2009, Distribution extensions of the milliped families Conotylidae and Rhiscosomididae (Diplopoda: Chordeumatida) into northern coastal British Columbia and Southern Alaska, Insecta Mundi 2009 (71), pp. 1-6 : 3

Conotylidae

Shear (1971, 1972, 1976) established the

Conotylidae in south-central and southeastern BC;

Figure 2. Distribution of the Conotylidae along the Shelley (1990) provided additional localities and Pacific Coast of northwestern North America. Stars, extended the family as far north as Pine Pass, 129 Taiyutyla shawi ; diamond, T. lupus ; dots, Taiyutyla sp. km (80 mi) west of Dawson Creek and ca. 483 km nr. T. shawi and T. lupus ; asterisk,? Bollmanella sp. A (300 mi) south of the Yukon, where no millipeds few dots denote two closely proximate localities. have been collected. All prior records were sum- Abbreviations as in Fig. 1 .

marized by Hoffman (1999). Kevan (1983) and

Kevan and Scudder (1989) cited a number of conotylid genera as potential inhabitants of western Canada, and Shear (2004) confirmed Taiyutyla Chamberlin, 1952 , for this region by describing T. shawi and T. lupus from northern and southern Vancouver Island, respectively. Sampling by RMS in 2006 and the authors in 2007 establish Conotylidae in the Alexander Archipelago, northern coastal BC, the continental land mass as far north as Gustavus, Alaska (only ca. 182 km [113 mi] south of the Yukon), and also near Hyder, Alaska, and Stewart, BC (Fig. 2), at roughly the same latitude as Pine Pass. These records constitute a familial range extension of approximately 1,054 km (655 mi), the northernmost previous site being the type locality of T. shawi (Shear 2004) . However, the northernmost continental locality for both the class and order in western North America is that of the female caseyid provisionally assigned to Opiona columbiana Chamberlin, 1951 , by Shelley et al. (2007) -- the confluence of the Tatshenshini and O’Connor Rivers in the “Haines Triangle” region of BC, around 30 km (19 mi) south of the Yukon. As Diplopoda are known from so proximate a site, it seems a foregone conclusion that millipeds inhabit at least the southern periphery of the Yukon Territory, and substantiation is warranted.

Two body forms of conotylids were encountered that we interpret as representing distinct genera. The first is an immature male that we provisionally assign to Bollmanella Chamberlin, 1941 , because of its small size and advanced maturity; a genus of small-bodied conotylids ( Shear 1974), Bollmanella is one of the potential west Canadian genera cited by Kevan (1983) and Kevan and Scudder (1989). The second, Taiyutyla , a large-bodied taxon, is represented by 3 males and 33 females that are anatomically similar to the Vancouver Island species; seven females were discovered on a single log on “ 20 mi Spur Trail” on POW. The? Bollmanella juvenile was encountered ca. 160 km (100 mi) inland under bark of a decaying log at a moderately moist locality, but Taiyutyla was solely in coastal rain forests in association with decaying P. sitchensis logs and stumps, usually under thick layers of moss. Thirty-four individuals is a sizeable sample, and for only three males to be collected, and none on the log with seven females, is striking. Cook and Collins (1895) collected 80 specimens of the parthenogenetic caseyid, Underwoodia iuloides (Harger, 1872) (= Underwoodia polygama Cook and Collins, 1895 ) on Long Island, New York, only two of which were males, yielding a sex ratio of 40 females: 1 male ( Shelley 1992). With 33 females and 3 males, the sex ratio of our samplings in Alaska and adjacent BC suggests that parthenogenesis may be operative in Taiyutyla at higher latitudes.

Figures

Figure 1. Distributions of the Rhiscosomididae, Shear (1972) incorporated Rhiscosomididae Rhiscosomides, and R. mineri along the Pacific Coast of and its lone genus, Rhiscosomides Silvestri, 1909, northwestern North America. AK, Alaska; BC, British into his reclassification of New World Columbia; OR, Oregon; QCI, Queen Charlotte Islands; chordeumatidans, describeda new species from the VI, Vancouver Island; WA, Washington; YT, Yukon central California coast, and depicted the few Territory. known occurrences on a map of the “lower 48” US states. The next year, he provided synoptic accounts of the four established species, described three new species, and mapped occurrences in coastal Oregon (Shear 1973). The familial distribution was characterized as the “Pacific coast region of the United States from the Monterey Peninsula north to the Columbia River,” and the northernmost congener, Rhiscosomides mineri Silvestri, 1909, occupied the northern one-third of coastal Oregon, from near Portland to Linn County (Co.) east of Corvallis. Despite the absence of records, Kevan (1983) and Kevan and Scudder (1989) reported the family from Washington state and considered it a potential inhabitant of BC. Speculating that the species was R. mineri, Shelley (1990) recorded the family and genus from west of Sooke on southern Vancouver Island, thereby establishing occurrences north of the Columbia River and in both BC and Canada. Hoffman (1999) summarized known records but missed the record from BC. Rhiscosomidids were discovered in both southern Alaska and northern BC in 2007, and a sample in the FSCA confirms occurrence in Washington. We now identify the species as R. mineri and report two localities from southern coastal BC based on samples in the NCSM and CNIC. The Oregon samples of R. mineri reported by Shear (1973) were obtained from berlesates of litter, grass, and decaying wood, and from “mixed conifer and deciduous duff.” Those from northern BC were found in temperate rain forests in association with decaying logs under thick layers of moss, and the Alaska individuals were crawling on a Sitka Spruce [Picea sitchensis (Bongard) Carrière] twig; habitat was not indicated for the samples from Vancouver and Vancouver Island. These records extend the known ranges of the family, genus, and species some 966 km (600 mi) northward and establish their presences in the southern extremity of the Alaskan Panhandle and Alexander Archipelago (Fig. 1). Illustrations and anatomical details are provided by Shear (1973:194-196, figs. 1-3).