Losing legs to facilitate sex: Triramidesmus gen. nov., a new remarkable monospecific genus of the millipede family Polydesmidae (Diplopoda, Polydesmida) from the Altai Mountains of northeastern Kazakhstan
Pavel S. Nefediev, Sergei I. Golovatch, Julia S. Nefedieva · 2026
Read Losing legs to facilitate sex: Triramidesmus gen. nov., a new remarkable monospecific genus of the millipede family Polydesmidae (Diplopoda, Polydesmida) from the Altai Mountains of northeastern Kazakhstan by Pavel S. Nefediev, Sergei I. Golovatch, Julia S. Nefedieva (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13570252.txt.
Description
Pavel Nefediev, Sergei Golovatch, and Julia Nefedieva described a new millipede genus and species from the Altai Mountains of northeastern Kazakhstan in twenty twenty-six. The animal, named Triramidesmus kazakhstanus, belongs to the family Polydesmidae. It shows a mix of traits not seen before in its whole order.
Its side flanges are notched, its male mating limbs branch three ways, and it carries a distinct inner chamber linked to mating. Most striking, the adult female has almost lost her second pair of legs. The authors suggest this loss eases mating. In females that have already mated, the mating opening is blocked by flattened parts of that leg pair, which hints at rivalry over mates. The paper gives a map and rich images from light and electron microscopes.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Pavel S. Nefediev, Sergei I. Golovatch, Julia S. Nefedieva |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 25 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |