Hyleoglomeris xia, Golovatch, Sergei I., Liu, Weixin & Geoffroy, Jean-Jacques, 2012

Golovatch, Sergei I., Liu, Weixin & Geoffroy, Jean-Jacques, 2012, Review of the millipede genus Hyleoglomeris Verhoeff, 1910 in China, with descriptions of new species (Diplopoda, Glomerida, Glomeridae), Zootaxa 3358, pp. 1-27 : 4-5

Hyleoglomeris xia sp. n.

Fig. 2.

Material examined: Holotype male ( IZAS), China, Hunan Prov., Linwu County, Sanhe Town, Tianhe Village, Cave 1, 19.06. 2009, leg. Tian Mingyi & Xue Zhihong (CHIhn09–LWX02). Paratype. 1 female ( SCAU), same locality, together with holotype.

Name: To emphasize the animal’s ocelli being unpigmented, “ xia ” in Chinese meaning “blind”; a noun in apposition.

Diagnosis: Differs from all congeners in the residual coloration of the antennae, the presence of a lobe on the caudomedial process of the telopod femur, of a setoid filament at the tip of the telopod syncoxital horns, of only a residual telopod tibial process, coupled with a roundly subtrapeziform, slightly concave, central lobe of the telopod syncoxite, as well as a semi-circular notch of male syncoxite 18, and a 3 -segmented male telopodite 17. See also Key below.

Description: All characters like in H. tiani sp. n., except as follows.

Length ca 5.0 ( holotype) or 6.0 mm ( paratype), width 2.5 ( holotype) or 3.0 mm ( paratype). Coloration nearly entirely pallid, only antennae in paratype very faintly infuscate, brownish. Ocelli at least 4 + 1, translucid, barely visible. Antennomere 6 ca 2.1–2.2 times as long as high.

Second tergite with 7 or 8 transverse striae, 3 or 4 starting below, one level to, the remaining striae above schism, 3 or 4 frontmost ones crossing the dorsum.

Male leg 17 ( Fig. 2 A) with a very low and rather irregularly shaped outer coxal lobe; telopodite 3 -segmented, tarsus with only one subapical spine.

Male leg 18 ( Fig. 2 B) with a rather broadly rounded syncoxital notch; telopodite 4 -segmented.

Telopods ( Fig. 2 C-E) with a high, apically slightly concave, sparsely setose, central syncoxital lobe flanked by two setose horns, each latter crowned by a minute, elongate lobule supplied with an adjacent mesal setoid filament ( Fig. 2 E). Prefemur and, to a lesser extent, femur micropapillate laterally. Caudomedial femoral process prominent, subapically with a rounded lobe ( lo) on caudal face. Caudomedial process of tibia very obscure, low, membranous; tibial tubercle on caudal face evident, papillate. Tarsus strongly sigmoid, subacuminate apically.

Remarks: Since this species shows such troglomorphic traits as entirely unpigmented tegument and ocelli, it can well prove to be a troglobite. Residual coloration of the antennae in one of the two specimens is noteworthy.