A new genus of scutigerid centipedes (Chilopoda) from Western Australia, with new characters for morphological phylogenetics of Scutigeromorpha

Abstract

The scutigerid centipede Allothereua incola Verhoeff, 1925, originally described from the Kimberley region of northwestern Australia, is abundantly represented in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. It forms the basis for a new genus, Pilbarascutigera, resembling Thereuopoda Verhoeff, 1904, and Thereuopodina Verhoeff, 1905, in the form of its female gonopods and in having short, triangular spicula on the tergal plates. Pilbarascutigera unites with Thereuopoda in cladistic analysis of morphological characters based on a pairing of slender, needle-like bristles (Tastborsten sensu Verhoeff) and spines on the posterior tergal plates and the arrangement of sensilla on the metarthron of the female gonopod. Scanning electron microscopic documentation of P. incola informs on numerous aspects of scutigeromorph morphology, including the female subanal plates, tergal prominences, and peristomatic structures.

A passage through India: the biotic ferry model supports the build-up of Indo-Australian biodiversity of an ancient soil arthropod clade

“…While we established a robust species hypothesis for scutigeromorphs for our global biogeographic analysis, it’s imperative that we undertake morphology-based systematic research on PIP species in the future. However, it is worth noting that identifying scutigeromorphs at the species level is notoriously difficult (see Edgecombe, 2007; Edgecombe & Barrow, 2007). Historically, the clade’s taxonomy went from an era of naming many species based on minor variations in a suite of meristic characters (e.g., numbers of articles in the flagella of the antennae and tarsomeres in the legs) but with access to only small sample sizes, to an era of rampant synonymy.…”