Nedyopus swinhoei Xiong & Chen & Jiang & Jiang 2025, comb. nov.
Creators: name: Xiong, Yuan
name: Chen, Huiming
name: Jiang, Xuankong
name: Jiang, Chao
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Diplopoda
Polydesmida
Paradoxosomatidae
Nedyopus
Nedyopus swinhoei

description: Nedyopus swinhoei (Pocock, 1895) comb. nov.
Figs 1 A, 2, 3, 4
Stronglosoma Swinhoei Pocock, 1895: 354–355. Type specimen: holotype female, collected from Chee Foo (= Zhifu), Yantai, Shandong Province of China, deposited at the British Museum of Natural History (Hoffman 1962), not examined.
Kronopolites swinhoei: Attems 1914.
Strongylosoma patrioticum Attems, 1898: 300, figs 12, 13. Type locality: Japan. New synonymy.
Nedyopus patrioticus: Attems 1914: 201; Attems 1937: 138–139; Takashima 1949: 17; Takakuwa 1954: 47; Takashima and Haga 1956: 332; Miyosi 1959: 49, 71; Wang 1964: 71; Wang 1996: 87; Mikhaljova et al. 2000: 119; Korsós 2004: 23; Chen et al. 2006 b: 3998 –4000; Nguyen and Sierwald 2013: 1231. New synonymy.
Diagnosis.
Differs from other species of the genus by the following combination of characters. The metaterga have strong contrasting colors, which are not circularly patterned as in other Nedyopus species, and the gonopod femur suddenly widens at the base, with l’ and l ” not jagged.
Material examined.
China – Anhui Province: • 1 ♂, Fuyang, 30. I. 2020, Yihao Ge leg. (IBGAS). • Jiangxi Province: 1 ♂ and 1 ♀, Ji’an, (27.1439 ° N, 115.0426 ° E), 50 m a. s. l., 19. V. 2017, Xuankong Jiang leg. (IBGAS). • Shandong Province: 1 ♂ and 1 ♀ (20231025001), Yantai, Zhifu District, Zhifu Island, (37.6100 ° N, 121.3716 ° E), 40 m a. s. l., 25. X. 2023, Xuankong Jiang, Tian Lu and Chongwu Lu leg. (CMMI); • 16 ♂♂ and 12 ♀♀, same data, (IBGAS); • 15 ♂♂ and 13 ♀♀, Yantai, Zhifu District, Tashan Park, (37.5056 ° N, 121.3972 ° E), 290 m a. s. l., 24. X. 2023, Xuankong Jiang, Tian Lu and Chongwu Lu leg. (IBGAS).
Description.
Length ca 17.5–25.1 mm (♂), 18.2–32.7 mm (♀) with 20 segments. Live color variable (Fig. 1 A). Posterior half of each metazonae with transverse band, pale yellow to orange. Antennomere 1–6 dark brown, antennomere 7 whitish. Legs light yellow (Fig. 2 A – H).
Clypeolabral region and vertex densely setose. Epicranial suture distinct. Width of body gradually expanded from head to 5 th segment, approximately equal in width from 5 th to 16 th segments, and tapering from 16 th to telson. Caudal corner of collum broadly rounded, declined ventrad, produced behind rear tergal margin (Fig. 2 A, B).
Cuticle shining (Fig. 2 A, C, F); surface below paranota finely microgranulate (Fig. 2 B, D, G). Paranota strongly developed (Fig. 2 A, B, C, F), slightly upturned, lying rather high (at upper 1 / 3 of body) but below dorsum; anterior edge broadly rounded and narrowly bordered; posterior edge nearly straight. Ozopores evident, lying on paranota at its posterior margin, in segments 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15–19. Transverse sulcus usually distinct (Fig. 2 A, C, F), complete on metaterga 5–18 (♂), narrow, linear, shallow, reaching bases of paranota, faintly ribbed at bottom. Stricture between pro- and metazonae evident, broad and deep, ribbed at dorsal side down to base of paranota (Fig. 2 A – F). Pleurosternal carinae with a sharp caudal tooth on segments 3–6. Epiproct (Fig. 2 G, H) conical, flattened dorsoventrally; tip subtruncate; pre-apical papillae small, lying close to tip. Hypoproct roundly subtriangular, spinnerets at caudal edge small and well separated (Fig. 2 H). Sterna densely setose, without modifications, but with two small, rounded, fully separated, setose cones between ♂ coxae 4 (Fig. 2 E).
Gonopods (Fig. 3) intricate. Coxite elongate, subcylindrical, strongly setose distoventrally. Prefemoral part nearly half femoral length. Femorite short and bulge out at one end like a belly, distal portion carrying two lobes (l’ and l ”). l’ parallel to solenophore. Solenophore lamelliform, twisted distally. Solenomere short and flagelliform.
Distribution.
China: Anhui (New record), Jiangsu, Jiangxi (New record), Shandong, Taiwan (Pocock 1895; Chen et al. 2006 b; Zhang et al. 2024); Indonesia, Japan, Korea (Nguyen and Sierwald 2013).
Remarks.
The specimens from Zhoushan Island were initially identified as K. swinhoei by Brölemann in 1896, without providing a justification. However, our investigation reveals a distinct divergence from the original description. For instance, the specimens from Zhoushan are notably larger (47 mm vs 35 mm) and have more vivid in color on the metazonites (orange-red vs yellow).
During our research in Zhifu, we found a species that closely matches Pocock’s description, leading us to confidently identify it as K. swinhoei. On examination of the topotypes, we observed significant differences in the gonopods compared to Brölemann’s illustrations (1896). These differences, including the femorite (strongly twisted and expanded in Nedyopus vs straight in Kronopolites), the postfemoral sulcus (missing in Nedyopus vs existed in Kronopolites) and the solenophore (lamelliform in Nedyopus vs tubuliform in Kronopolites), indicate that this species belongs to Nedyopus rather than Kronopolites, and is identical to the widespread species Nedyopus patrioticus (Attems, 1898). Consequently, K. swinhoei is formally transferred to Nedyopus, and Nedyopus patrioticus is considered a junior synonym of Nedyopus swinhoei (Pocock, 1895) comb. nov. Additionally, N. patrioticus consists of two subspecies Nedyopus patrioticus patrioticus (Attems, 1898) from Japan and Nedyopus patrioticus unicolor (Carl, 1902) from Indonesia. Therefore, the subspecies unicolor should be treated as Nedyopus swinhoei unicolor (Carl, 1902) comb. nov.
Nedyopus swinhoei (Pocock, 1895) comb. nov. has a wide distribution across Asia, from Indonesia to China, Korea, and Japan (Wang 1955; Nguyen and Sierwald 2013). This species is often found near human habitation and may spread through human activities. In China, documented records of this species were limited to Jiangsu, Shandong, and Taiwan provinces (Pocock 1895; Wang 1955; Zhang et al. 2024), possibly due to limited investigation. Our study identified additional distribution locations in Anhui and Jiangxi, suggesting that the species might be found in other regions across China in the future.
description: Published as part of Xiong, Yuan, Chen, Huiming, Jiang, Xuankong & Jiang, Chao, 2025, Topotypes of the millipede species Kronopolites swinhoei (Pocock, 1895) reveal a new synonym with revalidation of Kronopolites svenhedini (Verhoeff, 1934) (Diplopoda, Polydesmida, Paradoxosomatidae), pp. 85-98 in ZooKeys 1231 on pages 85-98, DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.1231.137769