Phymatodesmus de Saussure & Zehntner, 1902

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

Genus Phymatodesmus de Saussure & Zehntner, 1902

Phymatodesmus de Saussure & Zehntner, 1902 ; type species Polydesmus sakalava de Saussure & Zehntner, 1897 , by monotypy. See Mesibov et al. (2018) for the convoluted taxonomic history of this generic name.

Diagnosis.

Body pale reddish, subcylindrical, much shorter than those of Dalodesmus and Eutubercularium , only ca 10 mm long, 1.0– 1.05 mm wide. Paraterga very narrow, declivous and subrectangular, unlike in Dalodesmus and Eutubercularium where the paraterga are conspicuous and greatly expanded. Phymatodesmus differs from both Eutubercularium and Dalodesmus in the presence of circular cones / tuberculations (vs large, oval to polygonal, often irregular, piligerous tuberculations or areations), and in the 2 + 2 setae on the paraprocts borne on distinct knobs (not being borne on distinct knobs in Eutubercularium and Dalodesmus ).

Remark.

Hoffman (1980) tentatively listed this genus in the family Vaalogonopodidae , vs Dalodesmidae in recent species lists ( Enghoff 2003; Wesener and Enghoff 2022), a placement we can confirm with the first description of the male.