Identity of Glomeris bicolor Wood, 1865, and the Status of the Generic Names Hyleoglomeris Verhoeff, 1910 and Rhopalomeris Verhoeff, 1906 (Diplopoda, Glomeridae)

Abstract

The large, basically Asian genus Hyleoglomeris Verhoeff, 1910 is shown to encompass still another species, H. bicolor (Wood, 1865) from Hong Kong, comb. n. ex Glomeris Latreille, 1802, based on fresh topotypic material which is here redescribed and illustrated in due detail. Verhoeff’s (1906) designation of Glomeris bicolor as the type species of Rhopalomeris Verhoeff, 1906, long acknowledged as based on misidentified material, is here rectified as a misidentified type species, according to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (§ 70.3). Following Silvestri (1917), the synonymy of R. bicolor sensu Verhoeff (1906) with R. carnifex (Pocock, 1889) is reinstated, the latter taxon also reconfirmed as the valid type species of Rhopalomeris. The nomenclature of Hyleoglomeris and Rhopalomeris is thus stabilized, leaving both these genera in their present scopes as defined and used since Silvestri (1917).