Minutissimiulus Shelley, 2016

Shelley, Rowland M. & Smith, Jamie M., 2016, Parajulid milliped studies XI: Initial assessment of the tribe Gosiulini (Diplopoda: Julida), Insecta Mundi 2016 (509), pp. 1-17 : 2-3

Components. Gosiulus Chamberlin, 1940 ; Minutissimiulus Shelley , new genus.

Distribution. Occurring, east-west, from the western fringe of the Piney Woods biome in eastcentral Texas to the mountains of westcentral Arizona, ranging northward through the Texas Panhandle and the Front Ranges of the Rockies about 1/3 of the length of Colorado and southward to the Rio Grande and the Mexican border, continuing southward for most of the length of Nuevo León ( Fig. 1 , 13 ). Shelley and Medrano (2006) depicted the range of Gosiulini then known on a map of the “southern clade,” but it lacked Colorado, central Arizona, and Nuevo León; however, Causey (1974) had accurately characterized the area as “Arizona and Colorado southeast to northeastern Mexico.” Though never describing the genus or species, Causey had samples of Minutissimiulus biramus , now housed at the FSCA, and knew of the tribe’s occurrence in Nuevo León, the first of a primarily US parajulid taxon south of the Rio Grande and the first occurrence of a tribe other than Parajulini in “mainland” Mexico ( Shelley 2008).

Remarks. We label process “C” as such because of positional homology with that projection in Nesoressini ( Shelley and Medrano 2006), suggesting affinity between the tribes. Such a relationship is supported by their sympatric occurrence in both western New Mexico ( Fig. 1 ) and likely also eastern Laramidia, Nesoressini occurring near the edge of the former Western Interior Seaway. As the structure in Aniulini that has been termed “prefemoral process” in all prior publications also arises at this position, it also seems homologous and properly labeled as process “C”, with the prefemoral process being absent in this tribe.

Figures

Figure 1. Known (solid lines) and projected (dashed lines) distribution of Gosiulini plotted against the maximal extent of the Western Inland Seaway in the Cretaceous Period, ca. 65–100 mya. The approximate distribution of Nesoressini (Shelley and Medrano 2006) is shaded in red.

Figure 13. Distributions of species of Gosiulini. Black, G. conformatus. Red, G. timpius. Green, M. biramus.