A phylogenetic analysis of 62 species (32 genera) of the Palaearctic millipede family Julidae, including the
aberrant alpine genus Pteridoiulus Verhoeff, 1913, was made based on partial sequences of the mitochondrial 16S rRNA
(16S) gene and the nuclear 28SrRNA(28S) gene, respectively. The two datasets (16SrDNAand 28SrDNA)were analysed in
combination but treated as different partitions using direct optimisation as implemented in POY. The 16S rDNA and the
28S rDNA sequences vary from 410 to 449 bp and from 467 to 525 bp in length, respectively. All searches were performed
under six different gap opening costs, an extension gap cost of 1, and a substitution cost of 2. Based on previous investigations
the optimal gap opening cost was set to 4, and the robustness of different gap opening costs ranging from 1 to 6 investigated.
Additionally, the two data partitions were aligned individually usingMAFTTand run inTNT both with gaps treated as a fifth
state, and as missing, and finally the alignments were used as input in a maximum likelihood (ML) analysis. The order Julida
and the family Julidae were recovered as monophyletic under all weight sets in POY, as well as in the TNT andMLanalyses.
Likewise, in all analyses Pteridoiulus was found to be sister to another monotypic alpine genus, Heteroiulus Verhoeff, 1897.
The Pteridoiulus+ Heteroiulus clade is robust to parameter changes but lacks morphological support. The distribution
pattern of the clade, Pteridoiulus in the eastern Alps (mainly Austria), Heteroiulus in the southern Alps (Italy) seems unique,
since similar patterns all involve very similar, closely related species pairs.