Dalodesmus Cook, 1896

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 Dalodesmus Cook, 1896

Dalodesmus Cook, 1896 ; type species D. tectus Cook, 1896 , by monotypy.

Tubercularium Attems, 1898 ; type species: T. odontopezum Attems, 1898 , by monotypy, synonymised by Jeekel (1965).

Pterodesmus de Saussure & Zehntner, 1901 ; invalidly proposed without a type species, also preoccupied by Pterodesmus Cook, 1896 ; synonymised by Jeekel (1965).

Note.

Species included: 6 (including two new described below).

Diagnosis.

Body medium-sized, 17–28 mm long and 3.7–5.3 mm wide. Midbody metaterga with 4–6 transverse, often rather irregular rows of piligerous tuberculations or obliterated areations between always strongly developed and laterally similarly piligerous crenulate / tuberculate paraterga, these being sub-horizontal to upturned. Gonopods less elaborate and more simple than in the other genera, both coxites and densely setose prefemorites equally short and fused medially; femorites (fe) mostly slender, subcylindrical, at most only insignificantly flattened sagittally, contiguous medially and fused in basal 1 / 3, with a sternal rudiment visible ventrally at the very base, bare to sometimes sparsely setose until acropodite, the latter (= acropodite) basically tripartite, a mostly distinct, occasionally branching and only rarely missing solenomere branch (sl) lying between and typically flanked by two or three branches of a rather simple to elaborate solenophore: one medial (mb), this only rarely subdivided into an apical (ab) and a subapical branch (sb), and the other lateral (lb).

Dalodesmus differs from Phymatodesmus in the much larger size (> 20 mm, vs ~ 10 mm), the strongly developed, apically pointed paratergites (vs short and rectangular in Phymatodesmus ), the presence of large, oval to polygonal, often irregular, piligerous tuberculations or areations (vs circular cones / tuberculations in Phymatodesmus ), and the 2 + 2 setae on the paraprocts not being borne on distinct knobs (vs borne on distinct knobs in Phymatodesmus ).

In gonopodal structure, the genus Dalodesmus differs from both Phymatodesmus and Eutubercularium in the femorites being long and slender,> 2 × as long as acropodites, subcylindrical, diverging in distal 2 / 3 to 1 / 2, bare to only poorly setose ventrally and / or laterally (vs femorites stout, only ~ 2 × as long as acropodites, clearly flattened dorsoventrally, contiguous all along or nearly so, and densely setose on both ventral and lateral sides).