Author Institution: Department of Zoology and Entomology, The Ohio State University, Columbus 1

Hanan, Blake B.

The Ohio Journal of Science

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AN ADDITION TO THE OHIO RECORDS OF MILLEPEDESBLAKE B. HANANDepartment of Zoology and Entomology, The Ohio State University, Columbus 10One hundred or more specimens of a small, barbed-haired millepede werecollected on November 9, 1950, from beneath the bark of a sycamore tree adjacentto the farm campus of Ohio State University by Mr. John Knierim. On November12, 1950, the author visited the described site and collected several dozen morespecimens of the same species. This same site was collected again on May 12,1951, when two or three dozen immature specimens were taken.The author's tentative identification indicated that these specimens werePolyxenus fasciculatus Say, 1821. (The author is indebted to Dr. R. A. Hefnerof Miami University for verification of his tentative identification). A completedescription of the genus and American species is given by.Williams and Hefner(1928), while the more interesting features of this millepede are shown in figure 1.FIGURE 1. Dorsal view of a slide-mounted specimen of Polyxenus fasciculatus Say.Line at lower right indicates actual length.The living individual is about one-eighth inch in length and is basically of alight tan color with many white to cream colored bristles. Contrasting sharplywith this tan background are two dense, linear masses of light colored caudalbristles which show up even to the naked eye as a small white patch. This whiteappearance of the caudal area is a distinctive field characteristic.Most of the colonies found by the author were about an inch in diameter andconsisted of approximately one hundred individuals. The colonies were foundbeneath the closely adhering deciduate bark of the sycamore, and might easilyhave been overlooked had it not been for the numerous, white cast skins in thevicinity of each colony.Because these collections appear to be the first of this genus and species inOhio, and since it appears to be permanently established in this one location atleast, specimens will be placed in the Department of Zoology Collection of MiamiUniversity, Oxford, and the Ohio State Museum, Columbus.REFERENCEWilliams, S. R., and R. A. Hefner. 1928. The Millepedes and Centipedes of Ohio. Bulletin 18,Ohio Biological Survey.THE OHIO JOURNAL OF SCIENCE 52(2): 106, March, 1952.

An Addition to the Ohio Records of Millepedes

https://kb.osu.edu/bitstream/1811/3917/1/V52N02_106.pdf

An Addition to the Ohio Records of Millepedes

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