Chondrodesmus cf riparius Carl, 1914
Status:
GB IUCN status: Not applicable (non-native)
ID Difficulty
Identification
In Europe, adult females may reach 6 cm long and 9-10 mm wide, males are slightly smaller, about 5 cm long and 8 mm wide (Enghoff, 2008). To date, the only British specimens measured were immature but sizes of about 4 cm long and 6.5 mm width are in line with the continental examples. Apart from size, the appearance of the millipede is distinctive amongst British and Irish species, the yellow paranota contrasting strikingly with the reddish-brown body.
Distribution and Habitat
The only British records to date are from Manchester in 2011, the West Midlands in 2014 and Bexhill in 2018 and 2019. As with the continental finds all the British millipedes appear to have been imported in large potted plants.
Chondrodesmus riparius was described from Colombia in 1914 but seems not to have been seen in its native habitat since then. Scattered records of Chondrodesmus c.f. riparius began to be reported from northern Europe from 2000 (Enghoff, 2008), all linked to indoor potted plants.
References
Enghoff, H. (2008) A large neotropical millipede in European flower pots. Bulletin of the British Myriapod & Isopod Group 23: 38-39.
Links
MilliBase - Global catalogue of Millipedes: https://millibase.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=936590
BRC code
97