A paper has been published in the Biodiversity Data Journal (doi: 10.3897/BDJ.3.e5176) looking at the identity and origins of the British populations of the Dwarf Pill Millipede, Trachysphaera cf. lobata.
Three new genera of Craspedosomatid millipede (out of seven found) and nine new species (out of ten found) were collected during David Bilton' s and BMIG's excursions to Galicia, NW Spain, in 1993 and 2004 respectively.
The new species include Galicisoma n.g. desmondkimei n.sp.; Galicisoma n.g. biltoni n.sp. and Turdulisoma helenreadae n.sp., which are named in honour of some of those prolific BMIG members who participated.
The committee have identified the Officer roles they think necessary to the future direction of BMIG. Many of these roles do not require expertise in or indeed any knowledge of myriapod and isopod ecology and identification (although by definition members are assumed to have an interest) and many of the skills they require are not well represented amongst the current committee. Take a look at the roles below and if you think you might be interested in one of these roles please do not hesitate to put yourself forward even if someone is already filling it.
Contents: Editorial; Spring field meeting in Linlithgow; AGM proposals; Look out for ectoparasitic fungi on millipedes; Trachelipus rathkei found in Yorkshire; A call for help in resolving the phylogeny of the pill-millipedes; A fourth site for Haplopodoiulus spathifer; Social myriapod – the BMIG Facebook page; Biogeographic and taxonomic catalogue of the centipedes of France; Millipede population explosions; In the journals.
In this week's New Scientist, an interesting interview with entomologist E.O.Wilson. The last section will be of interest to those who ever wondered what could possibly eat a polyxenid Bristly Millipede.
Read a scan of the text here.
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There are three new county atlases available for centipedes, millipedes and woodlice in Nottinghamshire. They are free to download at the following links.
http://www.eakringbirds.com/eakringbirds5/AtlasofNottinghamshireCentipedes.pdf
The first genome of a myriapod, the geophilomorph centipede Strigamia maritama, has been sequenced.
Arthropods are the most species-rich group of animals on Earth. Of the four main arthropod groups alive today, insects, crustaceans, chelicerates and myriapods, it is the latter (which includes centipedes and millipedes) for which the genome had not been sequenced.
