Polydesmus Latreille, 1802-1803

Nguyen, Anh D., Vu, Tam T. T. & Eguchi, Katsuyuki, 2024, The millipede family Polydesmidae Leach, 1816 (Diplopoda, Polydesmida) from Vietnam, with a description of a new cavernicolous species, ZooKeys 1190, pp. 259-280 : 259

Genus Polydesmus Latreille, 1802-1803

Type species.

Julus complanatus Linnaeus, 1761, by monotypy.

Remarks.

Polydesmus is certainly the largest genus within the family Polydesmidae , with over 200 species and subspecies which mainly occur in Europe and the Mediterranean, west of the central Caucasus ( Hoffman 1980; Djursvoll et al. 2001). A few species have been found in the Oriental Region, these being Polydesmus japonicus Miyosi, 1956, P. miyosii Murakami, 1966, P. tanakai Murakami, 1970, and P. tangonis Murakami, 1973 from Japan; P. moorei Pocock, 1895 and P. paludicola Pocock, 1895 from eastern China; P. liber Golovatch, 1991 from Hong Kong, southern China ( Golovatch 1991); and P. vietnamicus Nguyen, 2009, the only species of the genus from northern Vietnam ( Nguyen 2009). The two old species of Pocock (1895) from mainland China are only provisionally to be assigned to Polydesmus , as both require revision. The distribution of Polydesmus seems to be amphi-Palaearctic ( Golovatch 1991).