Trachycormocephalus Kraepelin, 1903

Lewis, John G. E., Minelli, Alessandro & Shelley, Rowland M., 2006, Taxonomic and nomenclatural notes on scolopendrid centipedes (Chilopoda: Scolopendromorpha: Scolopendridae), Zootaxa 1155 (1), pp. 35-40 : 36

Trachycormocephalus Kraepelin, 1903

Lewis (1986) demonstrated that Trachycormocephalus mirabilis Kraepelin, 1903 could not be distinguished generically from typical species of Scolopendra Linnaeus, 1758 and as it is the type species of Trachycormocephalus Kraepelin, 1903 , the latter generic name became a junior subjective synonym of the former. He suggested that other species of Trachycormocephalus were also referable to Scolopendra and most species of the former have subsequently been transferred.

Trachycormocephalus occidentalis Attems, 1909 (Type series: Namibia, Gross­ Namaland, Keetmanshoop, Kubub) was formally transferred to Scolopendra by Khanna & Yadav (1997), where it became a junior secondary homonym of S. occidentalis L., 1758 (now in the Geophilomorpha) and of S. occidentalis Meinert, 1886 . Consequently, T. occidentalis Attems, 1909 must be replaced by the oldest available synonym, Arthrorhabdus luteus Attems, 1928 , whose type locality Dinapore, given without further specification, is probably Dinapur, Bihar State, India. It seems unlikely that this species occurs in both Namibia and India but Attems’s (1909, 1928) descriptions differ in only a few minor details and he later (Attems, 1930) synonymised A. luteus with T. occidentalis . However, the name must be changed to S. lutea ( Attems, 1928) comb. nov., pending reassessment of the synonymy.

Regarding Trachycormocephalus intermedius Attems, 1928 (Type locality: Zimbabwe, Harare (formerly Salisbury)), its transferral to Scolopendra will result in homonymy with S. intermedia Porat, 1871 , so it must therefore be renamed. We propose Scolopendra attemsi nomen novum.

The remaining five species of Trachycormocephalus are herewith formally transferred to Scolopendra :

Trachycormocephalus arenicolus Lawrence, 1975 (Type locality: Namibia, Kaokoveld , Kaoko Otavi) = Scolopendra arenicola (Lawrence, 1875) comb. nov.

Trachycormocephalus koreanus Verhoeff, 1934 (Type locality: Korea) = Scolopendra koreana (Verhoeff, 1934) comb. nov.

Trachycormocephalus langi Chamberlin, 1927 (Type locality: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niangara ) = Scolopendra langi (Chamberlin, 1927) comb. nov.

Trachycormocephalus monticolus Lawrence, 1975 (Type locality: Namibia, Spitzkoppe ) = Scolopendra monticola (Lawrence, 1975) comb. nov.

Trachycormocephalus zuluanus Lawrence, 1958 (Type locality: South Africa, KwaZulu­ Natal , Gwaliweni Forest near Ingwavuma) = Scolopendra zuluana (Lawrence, 1958) comb. nov.

Zalesskaya and Schileyko (1992) wrote “Recently, Trachycormocephalus has been synonymised under Scolopendra (see Lewis, 1986), but the presence in the former of such distinguishing characters as the hind border of the head capsule sunk into a transverse groove in the first tergite combined with paramedian and basal sutures on the head capsule as opposed to a head capsule with the hind border overlying the anterior edge of the first tergite or overlain by it has led us, however, to the conclusion that Trachycormocephalus deserves the rank of a subgenus of Scolopendra . ” However, the head capsule may be overlain by T1 or just touch it in some species formally assigned to Trachycormocephalus and cephalic paramedian sutures and basal plates are absent in some of these species and present in some Scolopendra species e.g. S. alternans Leach, 1813 . We therefore conclude that subgenera are not presently warranted for Scolopendra , although they may prove to be necessary after a generic revision.