The Giant Pill-Millipedes, order Sphaerotheriida - An annotated species catalogue with morphological atlas and list of apomorphies (Arthropoda: Diplopoda)

This is the first complete catalogue documenting all species, genera, and higher categories of the giant pill-millipedes, order Sphaerotheriida. It provides a list of all 39 known potential apomorphies of members of the order that could be used as a template for future phylogenetic studies at the ordinal level in the Diplopoda. The catalogue also includes illustrations of key characters of the order, as well as illustrations of the intraordinal variation of the female vulva and male posterior telopods. It further includes a key to all five Sphaerotheriida families, short descriptions for each of the 24 genera and a summary of the state of knowledge of the ecology and development of the giant pill-millipedes. Synonymies for all 24 valid genera are listed in a convenient tabular format. All 351 valid Sphaerotheriida species and their synonyms are listed; 14 remain nomina dubia, while five cannot be placed in any family. For each family, genus and species, bibliographic citations are presented, including all sub- sequent citations in chronological order. For each species, the number and location of type depositories as well as the locality data from the literature are provided. Bothrobelum sulcatulum (Butler, 1872) is presented as a new combination (ex Zephronia). Lectotypes are designated for Zoosphaerium blandum (deSaussure & Zehntner, 1902), Z. globulus & Z. imbecillum (both syn- onyms of Z. voeltzkowianum (deSaussure & Zehntner, 1897)), and Z. piligerum (deSaussure & Zehntner, 1897)