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The millipede fauna inhabiting deep soil are poorly known. They are small and threadlike, slow moving, lacking pigmentation, and rarely encountered due to their obscure underground way of life. One family, the Siphonorhinidae, encompasses four genera and 12 species in a fragmentary distribution in California, southern Africa, Madagascar, the Malay Archipelago, and Indo-Burma. The family is represented in the Western Hemisphere by a single genus, Illacme Cook & Loomis, 1928 from California, with its closest known relative, Nematozonium filum Verhoeff, 1939, from southern Africa. A new species of this family is documented from soil microhabitats in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, Illacme socal Marek & Shear, sp. nov. Based on this discovery and the recent documentation of other endogean millipede species, we show that these grossly understudied subterranean fauna represent the next frontier of discovery. However, they are threatened by encroaching human settlement and habitat loss, and conservation of this species and other subterranean fauna is of high importance. 

The grass tribe Andropogoneae (Poaceae—Panicoideae) includes several important crops such as maize, sugarcane, and sorghum, and dominates the tropical grasslands of the world. We present here a plastome phylogeny of the tribe with the largest sample of genera to date (about 73%), including 65 newly assembled plastomes, together with a broad biogeographic analysis of Andropogoneae. Major relationships found in previous phylogenetic studies were confirmed here, with most nodes having higher resolution and support, including those of the backbone of the tree, which had been a major problem in previous phylogenies of the tribe. Our dated tree suggests that Andropogoneae diverged from Arundinelleae in the Early Miocene, while the “core Andropogoneae” clade originated in the Late Miocene. The tribe originated in East Asia, but intercontinental dispersal has been common, with many independent dispersal events to Africa and the New World. Based on the plastome phylogeny, we propose here a new classification of Andropogoneae as most of its previously accepted subtribes are not monophyletic. Our classification comprises 14 subtribes, 92 genera, and ∼1224 species. About 90% of the Andropogoneae species could be assigned to a subtribe, which represents a major step toward clarification of the taxonomy of the tribe. The remaining taxa were placedincertae sedispending additional molecular data. The new subtribes Chrysopogoninae and Rhytachninae are described herein. Our plastome trees also indicate that several Andropogoneae genera are para‐ or polyphyletic and require additional studies to define their circumscriptions.