Kashmireumatidae is a family of

millipedes Millipedes (originating from the Latin , "thousand", and , "foot") are a group of arthropods that are characterised by having two pairs of jointed legs on most body segments; they are known scientifically as the class Diplopoda, the name derive ...

belonging to the order

Chordeumatida Chordeumatida (from the Greek word for "sausage") is a large order of millipedes containing more than 1,400 species. Also known as sausage millipedes, they are found nearly worldwide. Chordeumatida is the largest order in the superorder Nemato ...

. This family includes eight species distributed among three genera. These millipedes are found in

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Nepal Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...

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, and

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

Description

These millipedes have nearly cylindrical bodies and range from 5mm to 14mm in length. The adult males in this family feature simple posterior

gonopod Gonopods are specialized appendages of various arthropods used in reproduction or egg-laying. In males, they facilitate the transfer of sperm from male to female during mating, and thus are a type of intromittent organ. In crustaceans and millipe ...

s. Adult millipedes in this family have only 26 or 28 segments (counting the collum as the first segment and the

telson The telson () is the hindmost division of the body of an arthropod. Depending on the definition, the telson is either considered to be the final segment (biology), segment of the arthropod body, or an additional division that is not a true segm ...

as the last) rather than the 30 segments usually found in this order. In the species '' Vieteuma topali'', adults have 26 segments, whereas in all other species in this family, adults have 28 segments. In some species (the genus '' Kashmireuma'' and the species '' V. longi''), the second leg pair in the adult female is vestigial, but in all other species in this family (the genus ''

Lipseuma ''Lipseuma'' is a genus of millipedes in the family Kashmireumatidae. This genus contains only two species, the type species '' L. josianae'' and its close relative '' L. bernardi''. Both species are troglobites found in caves in China. The spec ...

'' and the species ''V. topali'' and '' V. hubeiensis''), the adult female has a normal leg pair instead. Thus, in the genus ''Lipseuma'', the adult female has 46 pairs of walking legs, as one would normally expect in an adult female chordeumatidan with 28 segments (two fewer segments than typically found in this order). In the genus ''Kashmireuma'', however, adult females have the same 28 segments but only 45 pairs of walking legs, with a "platosternite" where a second pair of normal legs would otherwise be.

Genera

This family includes the following genera: * '' Kashmireuma'' Mauriès, 1982 * ''

'' Golovatch, Geoffroy & Mauries, 2006 * '' Vieteuma'' Golovatch, 1984

References

Chordeumatida {{Millipede-stub