Tasmanian Thipsels

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M50 and the thipsel gap

gap

There's an 80 km-wide gap across northern Tasmania in records of undescribed thipsels (map image above)

The gap doesn't seem to be due to lack of sampling. In the image, the small markers are sites where other native millipedes have been collected, including tiny, moisture-loving species like Asphalidesmus leae, Atrophotergum wurrawurraense and Procophorella bashfordi.

I don't know what's going on in the gap. Maybe none of the genera of undescribed thipsels occur there, or maybe they do occur there but haven't been found yet. Maybe I should look harder for thipsels in the gap's wetter forest patches?

In the meantime, today I visited the East Tamar near Windermere to search for fresh specimens of M50, on the eastern edge of the gap (see map image). M50 is represented by a single male I collected on 1993-07-29 (QVMAG, QVM:23:52398).

Thirty-three years later, the M50 site has been seriously degraded by encroaching residential development. I searched a nearby bush remnant in good condition but found only Atrophotergum pastorale and Tasmaniosoma armatum.

2026-07-15