Siphonophorida

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 : 26-27

publication ID

https://doi.org/ 10.5281/zenodo.5164069

persistent identifier

https://treatment.plazi.org/id/350B6716-0D24-FFDC-FF71-FA9DFCD9FBF8

treatment provided by

Felipe

scientific name

Siphonophorida
status

 

Order Siphonophorida View in CoL ( Fig. 22 View Figure 22 )

We recognize nine areas of Siphonophorida , three in Asia and Australia / New Zealand / Papua New Guinea /Oceania, two in the New World, and one each in Africa and Indian Ocean Islands ( Fig. 22 View Figure 22 ).

The New World distribution, comprising a large area and a point locality to the north in California, was mapped by Shelley (1996c); the former traverses the Equator and Tropic of Cancer and extends southward to the Tropic of Capricorn. The detached northern site, of Illacme plenipes Cook and Loomis, 1928 (Siphonorhinidae) , the world’s “leggiest” animal, is also the northernmost for the order and the only familial locality in the Western Hemisphere. Known only from the area of the type locality ( Cook and Loomis 1928; Chamberlin and Hoffman 1958; Shelley 1996c, d; Hoffman 1999), it was recently rediscovered by Marek and Bond (2006). The large area encompasses all Greater and Lesser Antilles (excluding the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos), Mexico, and Central America, and terminates at a southeastward slanted border that passes through central Peru and Bolivia but excludes Paraguay and the three southernmost Brazilian states: Paraná, Santa Catarina , and Rio Grande do Sul.

The lone African occurrence, of Siphonorhinidae , is restricted to KwaZulu Natal and Mpumalanga provs., Republic of South Africa; it was mapped by Shelley and Hoffman (2004). The order also occurs in the Seychelles ( Mauriès 1980b, Jeekel 2001b).

Records are sporadic, but we recognize six areas in Australasia that include western/southern Oceania. Sri Lanka, on the Indian Subcontinent, is one, but unlike Sphaerotheriida , Spirobolida , Chordeumatida , and Stemmiulida (Fig. 13, 28, 41, 46), no records exist from peninsular India itself. We unite isolated records from northern Pakistan, the northernmost Asian occurrence ( Golovatch 1991, Jeekel 2001b), northern India, the Darjeeling District in eastern India, and Assam (Appendix) into a narrow continuous strip through the Himalayas and adjacent southern lowlands. While varying in lengths, strip-like occurrences here, contiguous or detached from southeast Asian areas, are shown by Glomerida , Sphaerotheriida , Julida , and Chordeumatida ( Fig. 9 View Figure 7-9 , 13, 26, 41), and the point localities here in other colobognaths ( Platydesmida , Polyzoniida , Siphonocryptida ) ( Fig. 17 View Figure 17 , 20 View Figure 19-20 , 23 View Figure 23-25 ), constitute extreme manisfestations of this phenomenon. Because of these patterns, we project siphonophoridan occurrence eastward into northern Myanmar. The third Asian area encompasses all of the Malay and most of the Indochina peninsulas, spreads eastward around the Philippines to the Republic of Palau ( Takakuwa 1942), and then swings southward around Indonesia as far east as Halmahera and Flores. Although we could not find records, we project Siphonophorida for Sulawesi and Borneo as the order occurs on proximate islands in all directions and extends eastward to Lydekker’s Line. To the southeast, we unite the eastern arm of the Island of New Guinea (Port Moresby region, Papua New Guinea), eastern Queensland, the North Island of New Zealand, New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, and Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia ( Takakuwa 1942), into one area. Black (1997) recorded the order and nominate family from Northern Territory, Australia, in general, and Hoffman (1980a) and Mesibov (2009:90) cited the former from New South Wales. The New Zealand sites are near Wellington and well to the south on Auckland Island, the southernmost for Siphonophorida as a whole. Johns (1964) reported a juvenile Siphonophora from Auckland I. without comment, while simultaneously reporting many specimens of Schedotrigona n. sp. ( Chordeumatida ) from Campbell I. that he strongly suspected were introduced from New Zealand proper. Lacking information to the contrary, we regard the lone siphonophoridan as indigenous, include Auckland I. here ( Fig. 22 View Figure 22 ), but exclude Campbell I. on the Chordeumatida map ( Fig. 41 View Figure 41 ). The Australian and southeast Asian areas conceivably join, but without records from the gap, we leave them separate. Jeekel (2001b) summarized ordinal occurrences in Asia, and the only subsequent work is on Vietnam ( Enghoff et al. 2004). Enghoff (2005) did not record Siphonophorida from Thailand, but we project them for the east and south. Siphonophorida occur in peninsular Myanmar, and occurrence to the north is plausible. Without providing localities and provinces, D. Wang and Mauriès (1996) cited Siphonophorida from China based on an unpublished record of the first author, but we know of no published Chinese records. Extrapolating southeast Asian localities suggests occurrence in southernmost coastal China, Hainan Island, and southern Guangxi and Guangdong provs.

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