E20: New millipedes from the northwestern United States— 18 new species in 3 new genera!

Written By Livia Miller

Dr. Bill Shear is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biology at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia. He talks to me about his paper published in the May 24, 2021 issue of the Zootaxain which he and his coauthor describe three new genera and eighteen new species of millipedes from the US!

We talk about the difference between millipedes and centipedes, the “poor man’s rainforest” in temperate leaf litter, chemical defenses in millipedes, the wonderful biodiversity in soil, the wonderful biodiversity waiting to be discovered just in the US, and about problems with humans removing predators of whitetail deer!

The title of the paper is “Three new genera and eighteen new species of miniature polydesmid millipedes from the northwestern United States (Diplopoda, Polydesmida, Polydesmidae).”

The paper is currently Open Access and available here: https://www.mapress.com/j/zt/article/view/zootaxa.4975.1.3

Livia Miller

Collaboration-minded freelance web designer with experience in information architecture and communications production.

https://krohnmiller.info
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E21: The Taxonomic Impediment: a special episode in which we talk about the need for more evolutionary biologists
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E19: New Species— of orchids from Australia that trick gnats into sex!