An Updated Catalogue of the Millipedes (Diplopoda) of Thailand

Abstract

Thailand, a relatively small country in Southeast Asia, is outstanding in biodiversity owing to three zoogeographic regions overlapping there: the Sino-Himalayan, the Indo-Chinese, and the Sundaic ones. Based on all available published records until 2022, an updated checklist of the millipedes (Diplopoda) of Thailand presently comprises 263 species belonging to 54 genera, 17 families, and nine orders. No less than 222 of these species are endemic to subendemic to Thailand, with only eight being synanthropic and up to subcosmopolitan in distribution. Since the previous checklist in 2005, the fauna has gained 144 species described as new to science, as well as a further 20 representing new country records. This steep progress has largely become possible through the activities of the Animal Systematics Research Unit of Chulalongkorn University, a zealous team of young researchers organized and led by Professor Dr. Somsak Panha. The present full-scale catalogue of the Thai millipedes seems to be particularly topical as a certain landmark, however temporary, not only because of the very considerable time elapsed since the previous, strongly outdated, 2005 catalogue, but also on the occasion of the 65th birthday of Professor Panha, the leader of invertebrate taxonomic research in Thailand.