New finding place of rare species Trachysphaera cf. lobata (Diplopoda, Glomerida, Glomeridae) and other Diplopods species found in some regions of Lithuania

The arthropods class Diplopoda, the millipedes contain approximately 12,000 described species, which are widespread in the world. Although diplopods play an important ecological role in most terrestrial ecosystems, little is known about the group's diversity and biology compared with other arthropod groups. Millipedes are well covered in foreign scholar literature, as well as Lithuanian neighbouring countries. According to Fauna European (2013) Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, Kaliningrad, and especially Poland, stand out as countries with the biggest number of millipedes species. For this reason the main aim of the research is to update and complement studies of millipedes in Lithuania. The research started in 2016. The diplopods were collected by hand viewing shelters mainly in Kaunas region and at random in Šilute and Šakiai districts. From 2016 to the present 17 diplopods species were identified which belong to four families: Polyzoniidae, Blaninlidae, Julidae, Paradoxosomatidae. This research resulted a successful finding of species Trachysphaera cf. lobata (Diplopoda, Glomerida, Glomeridae) which is very rare in Europe and found only in a couple of countries. Because of their tiny size and stone resembling appearance these millipedes are not frequently encountered by an unskilled observer. This might explain why this specie has not been known in Lithuania and its neighbour countries. As result of this study we present a list of found diplopods in some regions of Lithuania with short remarks on their distributionBiologijos katedraVytauto Didžiojo universiteta