Arthrosphaeridae

Arthrosphaeridae is a family of giant pill millipedes that are found in Madagascar, the Western Ghats of India, and Sri Lanka. The largest pill-millipede in the world, Zoosphaerium neptunus (Butler 1872) belongs to this family and is known to swarm at certain times of the year.[1]

Arthrosphaeridae
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Arthropoda
Subphylum:
Myriapoda
Class:
Diplopoda
Order:
Sphaerotheriida
Family:
Arthrosphaeridae

Description

The first segment of the anterior telopods have a stridulatory organ known as a "harp" and this has one to ten ribs. The anal plate on the female is enlarged and has 1-12 ribs while the male anal shield has no special sclerotized notch as seen in other families. The segments of the antenna are oval or cylindrical.[2]

Taxonomy

Within the family Arthrosphaeridae there are four genus formally described:

  • Arthrosphaera Pocock, 1895 – India, Sri Lanka
  • Zoosphaerium Pocock, 1895 – Madagascar
  • Sphaeromimus de Saussure & Zehntner, 1902 – Southeast Madagascar
  • Microsphaerotherium Wesener & van den Spiegel, 2007 – Madagascar

References
  1. Thomas Wesener & Kai Schütte (2010). "Swarming behaviour and mass occurrences in the world's largest giant pill-millipede species, Zoosphaerium neptunus, on Madagascar and its implication for conservation efforts (Diplopoda: Sphaerotheriida)". Madagascar Conservation & Development. 5 (2): 89–94. doi:10.4314/mcd.v5i2.63137.
  2. Wesener, Thomas (2014). "A new phylogenetic analysis of the Sphaerotheriida (Diplopoda) with a revision of the Australian giant pill-millipedes". Invertebrate Systematics. 28 (2): 196. doi:10.1071/IS13048.

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