Spirostreptida (Jeekel, 1985)

Shelley, Rowland M. & Golovatch, Sergei I., 2011, Atlas of Myriapod Biogeography. I. Indigenous Ordinal and Supra-Ordinal Distributions in the Diplopoda: Perspectives on Taxon Origins and Ages, and a Hypothesis on the Origin and Early Evolution of the Class, Insecta Mundi 2011 (158), pp. 1-134 : 33-34

Order Spirostreptida s. l. ( Fig. 29 )

Spirostreptida s. l. (sensu Hoffman 1980 a, Shelley 2003a) occur on all continents except Europe ( Fig. 29 ). They span the Equator and both Tropics in the New World and Africa, the former being continuous and the latter, discontinuous, the Tropic of Cancer and Equator in Asia, and the Tropic of Capricorn in Australia. They also inhabit islands in the Atlantic (Cape Verdes, Bioko, both São Tomé and Principe [Appendix]) and Indian ( Comoros, Madagascar, Seychelles, Mauritius, Rodriguez) Oceans, which we combine with sub-Saharan Africa; except for the Hawaiian Islands, they are absent from Oceania. Spirostreptida also inhabit Bermuda, which is isolated because occurrence is not ubiquitous in the eastern US.

The New World distribution comprises four areas, the smallest in the northern Rocky Mts. of the US. An elongate region along the Pacific Coast, extending from southwestern Washington to northern Baja California Norte, includes the Channel Islands, and another elongate strip, with unknown southern limit, occupies central Chile. Finally, there is a large area that encompasses most of the southeastern and south-central United States, all Caribbean Islands except the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos, all of Mexico and Central America except the Baja California Peninsula, and extends south-southeastward in South America to east-central Argentina. Arising in western Pennsylvania and northern Virginia, the area ranges southward to the panhandle and north-central Florida, but it does not penetrate the peninsula and also excludes the Outer Banks/Coastal Plain of North Carolina. It angles southwestward to Oklahoma, curves north westward into the Rocky Mts. of Colorado, dips into northern Arizona, then heads southward through “mainland” Mexico (Sonora) into the Gulf of California, incorporating Tiburon Island. It encompasses the northern 1/2-2/3 of South America, as the western border slants through southern Peru and southwestern Bolivia north of the Atacama Desert. In Argentina, Spirostreptida veer south-southeastward away from the Andes and terminate north of Spirobolida .

Distributions in Africa, the Middle East, and Indian Ocean islands represent the nominate suborder. Restricted to the coastal region of the Republic of South Africa ( Fig. 32 ), Epinannolenidea are entirely subsumed by spirostreptideans. The Iranian area represents Cambalidea ( Chiraziulus Mauriès, 1983 ), whereas that in India /southeast Asia combines Cambalidea and Spirostreptidea . It extends from the vicinities of Mumbai and New Delhi to Shanghai and encloses Taiwan, the Philippines, all of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and peninsular India and Sri Lanka. We recognize a separate area in east/southeastern Australia that represents Cambalidea and Epinannolenidea , spreads eastward around New Zealand and New Caledonia, and is detached from the small range in southwestern Western Australia.

Spirostreptida s. l. are extinct from Europe. Past occurrence is shown by the Oligocene French fossil, Protosilvestria sculpta (Cambalidea) , redescribed by Mauriès (1992).

Taxonomists differ as to the constitution of Spirostreptida s. l., and Shear et al. (2003) and Shelley (2007a) promoted the “8th gonopod clade” concept that, if substantiated, will disrupt the concepts of Hoffman (1980a) and Shelley (2003a) and potentially elevate the component suborders to full orders. To cover this possibility, we map and discuss the distributions of Cambalidea , Epinannolenidea , and Spirostreptidea ( Fig. 30 , 32 , 34 ) separately; they demonstrate decidedly different patterns with little congruency, which supports elevating the first two to full orders.

Figures

Figure 29. Known (solid lines) and projected (dashed lines) distributions of the Order Spirostreptida s. l. (sensu Hoffman 1980a, Shelley 2003a), parameters as in Fig. 1. Asterisk, location of Protosilvestria sculpta, the Oligocene fossil from Quercy, France (Mauriès 1992).

Figure 30. Distribution of the Suborder Cambalidea. Asterisk, location of Protosilvestria sculpta, the Oligocene fossil from Quercy, France (Mauriès 1992).

Figure 32. Known (solid lines) and projected (dashed lines) distributions of the Suborder Epinannolenidea. Parameters are as in Fig. 1, except the question marks in Australia represent general records from Northern Territory, South Australia, and northern Western Australia (Black 1997).

Figure 34-35. Distributions. 34) Known (solid lines) and projected (dashed lines) distributions of the Suborder Spirostreptidea, parameters as in Fig. 1. 35) Known (solid lines) and projected (dashed lines) distributions of the Superorder Nematophora, parameters as in Fig. 1; a few records are available from the dotted area in North America. The upper arrow denotes the Chordeumatida (Tingupidae) record from Kodiak Island, Alaska, USA, and the lower one denotes the known and projected distribution of Chordeumatida (Eudigonidae) in Chile.