E-Fauna BC: the Millipedes of BC

With the help of millipede expert Rowland Shelley, curator of terrestrial invertebrates at the North Carolina Museum of Science, we have recently added millipedes to E-Fauna BC.  Visit our checklist of the Millipedes of British Columbia, which presently includes 32 species   The list was extracted from Rowland's 2002 paper on millipedes of central Canada (see below).

Atlas pages are now up for this group, although most distribution maps have little or no data at present. One species for which we do have some data is Harpaphe haydeniana haydeniana (Yellow Spotted Millipede),  a common and relatively easy species to identify from photos. Our maps show collection records for this species (Royal BC Museum) from coastal BC: Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands).

Unfortunately, however, many species can't be identified from photos, and require specimens to determine identity.

To learn more about millipedes visit the Myriapoda web site. 
View maps of family distributions in North America here.

References:

Shelley, Rowland. 2002.  The Millipedes of Central Canada (Arthropoda: Diplopoda) with reviews of the Canadian fauna and diplopod faunistic studies. Canadian Journal of Zoology 80: 1863-1875.

View a complete list of Rowland's publication here.