Eutubercularium voeltzkowi ( Mesibov, Wesener & Hollier, 2018 ) Wesener & Akkari & Golovatch, 2025

Wesener, Thomas, Akkari, Nesrine & Golovatch, Sergei I., 2025, Revision of the millipede family Dalodesmidae in Madagascar, with descriptions of two new Malagasy species of Dalodesmus Cook, 1896 (Diplopoda, Polydesmida), ZooKeys 1223, pp. 185-220 : 185-220

Eutubercularium voeltzkowi ( Mesibov, Wesener & Hollier, 2018) comb. nov.

Fig. 4

Polydesmus (Pterodesmus) sakalava – de Saussure & Zehntner, 1901: 437, figs 8–10 (D).

Polydesmus (Tubercularium) sakalava – de Saussure and Zehntner 1902: 93 (D).

Eutubercularium sakalava – Brölemann 1916: 605 (D); nec Hollier and Wesener 2017: 62 (L, N).

Non Tubercularium sakalava – Attems 1940: 435, fig. 619 (D, K).

Nec Dalodesmus sakalava – Hoffman 1974: 230 (D); nec Golovatch and Hoffman 1989: 162 (L); nec Enghoff 2003: 623 (L).

Dalodesmus voeltzkowi Mesibov, Wesener & Hollier, 2018: 389 (N), nom. nov.

Dalodesmus voeltzkowi – Wesener and Enghoff 2022: 926 (L).

Note.

The new name voeltzkowi was proposed to dispose of the homonymy within Polydesmus Latreille, 1761 , that had been created by de Saussure and Zehntner (1902), i. e., to correctly conserve P. sakalava de Saussure & Zehntner, 1897 as the older, and therefore valid, name (see below), and to replace P. sakalava de Saussure & Zehntner, 1901 as a later and invalid name ( Mesibov et al. 2018). No material of Polydesmus sakalava could be traced at the SMF (P. Jäger, pers. comm. April 2024) and the type locality is Nosy Be ( de Saussure and Zehntner 1901)

Brief description.

(After de Saussure and Zehntner 1901, 1902.) First described in a short text with three drawings ( de Saussure and Zehntner 1901: 8–10). Combined with a later verbal description of the adult ♂ holotype, by de Saussure and Zehntner (1902), the following relevant information can be derived: colouration brick red, metaterga castaneous brown, ends of paraterga brick red. Length 26 mm, width 4.5 mm. Paraterga strong, clearly rounded and crenulate laterally, acute caudolaterally. Metaterga with five, transverse rows of conical tuberculations (Fig. 4 A ).

Gonopods highly elaborate and complex, with coxites and densely setose prefemorites short and fused medially; femorites strongly flattened dorsoventrally, contiguous medially and fused in about basal half, without a sternal rudiment visible ventrally, each femorite setose until acropodite, this latter highly complex, basically 3 - branched: (1) what seems to be a long and flagelliform solenomere branch (sl) lying lateral to and supported by (2) the highest solenophore branch (sph), unequally bifid apically, sl and sph both slightly and regularly curved ventrad; and (3), more basally, at apical ~ 1 / 3, a very complex lateral branch (lb) consisting of an ear-shaped lateral outgrowth (e) with a shelf ventrobasally, a strong, subacuminate, distomesal uncus, regularly curved mesad and lying just distal to (e) shelf, and a twisted mesal lobe (m), directed distally, originating near lb base and with its tip curved ventrad (Fig. 4 B, C ).

Remarks.

It is only the unusually complex gonopodal conformation of E. voeltzkowi that allows us to clearly distinguish the genus Eutubercularium from the superficially very similar Dalodesmus : femorites densely setose all over the ventral and lateral sides, relatively stout, only ~ 2 × as long as acropodites and, much like Phymatodesmus , clearly flattened dorsoventrally (vs much longer, slender, and subcylindrical, less strongly setose to nearly bare); solenomere (sl) lateral, long, flagelliform and non-sigmoid (vs medial, short, usually simple and rather rod- or lobe-shaped, often sigmoid), lateral branch (lb) remarkably tripartite and complex (vs lb unipartite and usually simple).

Figures

Figure 4. Eutubercularium voeltzkowi (Mesibov, Wesener & Hollier, 2018), ♂ or ♀. Redrawn original drawings from de Saussure and Zehntner (1901) A midbody tergites, dorsal view B gonopod, posterior view C gonopod, lateral view of acropodite. Abbreviations: fe = femorite; lb = lateral branch; sl = solenomere branch; sph = highest solenophore branch.