Pachybolini – a tribe of giant Afrotropical millipedes: arguments for monophyly and the description of a new genus from Madagascar (Diplopoda : Spirobolida : Pachybolidae)

This project is part of the dissertation ‘Biodiversity, Evolution, Biogeography and Ecological Specialisation of Malagasy Diplopoda’ of TW conducted at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms Universität in Bonn under the supervision of JWW. Specimens for this study were made available by C. Griswold and D. Ubick (CAS), P. Sierwald and J. Boone (FMNH), J. Adis (MPIL), O. Soriano (MNCN), G. Giribet and L. Leibensperger (MCZ), P. Schwendinger (MHNG), J. Dunlop (MNHU), T. Kronestedt (NRS), D. Vandenspiegel (RMCA) and R. L. Hoffman (VMNH). R. L. Hoffman provided useful and continuous advice, plus the drawings of the (now presumably lost) gonopods of Hadrobolus. P. Sierwald provided access to the FMNH collections, microscopes, including SEM, G. Brovad (ZMUC) assisted with photography, and B. Strack (FMNH) advised on the SEM. Two anonymous reviewers and R. Mesibov provided numerous comments and really improved the present paper. TW was supported by Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes with a monthly grant and a special travel grant for studies at the FMNH, by PEET (NSF grant DEB 97-12438 and 05-29715), by the European Commission’s (FP 6) Integrated Infrastructure Initiative program SYNTHESYS (DK-TAF 1167 and FR-TAF 1166) and with a DFG-fund for the ‘Biodiversity and Biogeography of the Diplopoda from Madagascar’ WA 530/37–1.

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Appendix 1.  List of species studied but not included in the data matrix, see ‘taxon selection’
For a few species, specimens were not seen but information was extracted from the cited literature

Appendix 2.  Genera and species of Pachybolini