Mecistocephalus punctifrons Newport, 1843

Published, First, 2007, The Mecistocephalidae of the Japanese and Taiwanese islands (Chilopoda: Geophilomorpha), Zootaxa 1396, pp. 1-84 : 71

Mecistocephalus punctifrons Newport, 1843

M. punctifrons was one of the first Mecistocephalus species to be described, but the original diagnosis was vague and inaccurate. A detailed redescription of M. punctifrons was provided by Silvestri (1919), but it was based on a misidentified specimen actually belonging to M. nilgirinus Chamberlin, 1920 . The true identity and morphology of M. punctifrons were elucidated by Crabill (1970) and Bonato & Minelli (2004). At present, reliable records of M. punctifrons seem to be restricted to the Indian Peninsula ( Bonato & Minelli, 2004). Many specimens from other regions and actually belonging to different species were wrongly identified as M. punctifrons ; among these we can include the record published by Wang (1956) for Taiwan.