Golovatch S.I., Antipova M.D. 2022. The millipedes (Diplopoda) of the Republic of North Ossetia – Alania, northern Caucasus, Russia, with special reference to the fauna of the North Ossetian Nature Reserve // Arthropoda Selecta. Vol.31. No.2: 133–142 [in English].
Institute for Problems of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky pr. 33, Moscow 119071 Russia. E-mails: sgolovatch@yandex.ru , antimar.2410@gmail.com
doi: 10.15298/arthsel. 31.2.01
ABSTRACT. The results of a taxonomic treatment of the Diplopoda collected in the North Ossetian Nature Reserve, Caucasus, Russia are presented. The millipede fauna of the Republic of North Ossetia presently contains 17 species (including three, Cylindroiulus placidus (Lignau, 1903), Nemasoma caucasicum (Lohmander, 1932) and Omobrachyiulus caucasicus (Karsch, 1881), which are new to the fauna of the republic) from 15 genera, ten families and five orders, of which only about half, all supplied with faunistic records and partly illustrated, have been encountered in the nature reserve. The fauna is dominated by Caucasian endemic or subendemic zoogeographic elements, these being mainly confined to montane woodlands. The distribution of millipedes both downwards (to drier plain steppes or xeric woodlands) and upwards (to the subalpine and alpine meadows) tends to grow increasingly sporadic, thus emphasizing the Diplopoda as a generally mesophilous forest-dwelling soil-litter macrofauna group.
KEY WORDS: faunistic diversity, faunistic records, distribution.