Spirobolida

Not to be confused with Spirostreptida.

Spirobolida
Narceus americanus
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Myriapoda
Class: Diplopoda
Superorder: Juliformia
Order: Spirobolida
Bollman, 1893
Families

12: See text

Synonyms

Anocheta Cook, 1895 Haplogonophora Brolemann, 1931

Spirobolida is an order of "round-backed" millipedes containing approximately 500 species in 12 families.[1] Its members are distinguished by the presence of a "pronounced suture that runs "vertically down the front of the head".[2] Most of the species live in the tropics, and many are brightly coloured.[2] Mature males have two pairs of modified legs, the gonopods, consisting of the 8th and 9th leg pair: the posterior gonopods are used in sperm-transfer while the anterior gonopods are fused into a single plate-like structure.[3]

Front and rear views of the anterior (A, B) and posterior left (C, D) gonopods of a spirobolidan

The families are divided into two suborders:[1]

Suborder Spirobolidea

Suborder Trigoniulidea

  1. ^ a b Shear, W. (2011). "Class Diplopoda de Blainville in Gervais, 1844. In: Zhang, Z.-Q. (Ed.) Animal biodiversity: An outline of higher-level classification and survey of taxonomic richness" (PDF). Zootaxa. 3148: 159–164.
  2. ^ a b Stephen P. Hopkin & Helen J. Read (1992). "Taxonomy, evolution, and zoogeography". The Biology of millipedes. Oxford University Press. pp. 8–23. ISBN 978-0-19-857699-0.
  3. ^ "Putative apomorphies of millipede clades" (PDF). Milli-PEET: Millipede Systematics. The Field Museum, Chicago, IL. 26 September 2006.