Spirobolida

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 : 31-32

Order Spirobolida ( Fig. 28 )

Spirobolida occupy seven areas ( Fig. 28 ), three large and four small; one of the latter is a point locality in the northcentral US (Minnesota) (Shelley et al. 2006). Two small coastal areas in Australia, subequal in size, enclose Barrow Island and a “mainland” site in Western Australia and the Adelaide region of South Australia , and a larger one in Asia encompasses southern peninsular India, Sri Lanka, and the Maldive Islands. Large areas exist in the Western Hemisphere , sub-Saharan Africa, and east/ southeastern Asia /eastern Australia / North Island of New Zealand / western Oceania .

The continuous range in the Western Hemisphere arises in Québec, Canada, and Maine and Washington states, USA, and extends southward through Mexico /Central America and the Antilles (excluding the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos) to central Argentina. Shelley and Bauer (1997) and Shelley (2010a) mapped Tylobolinae ( Spirobolidae ) and showed it angling inland in northern California and extending northward to Klickitat Co., Washington, to which we add adjacent Skamania Co. (Appendix). Narceus Rafinesque, 1820 ( Spirobolidae : Spirobolinae), the most common diplopod genus in eastern North America, ranges from Québec and Maine to the south Florida Keys and westward to the Central Plains ( Keeton 1960, 1966; Shelley et al. 2006), and Atopetholidae and Allopocockiidae arise in eastcentral and south Texas, respectively ( Hoffman and Orcutt 1960; Hoffman 1969b, 1999; Shelley and Hoffman 1995). The former spread westward to the Pacific Coast and southward into Baja California and “mainland” Mexico, where they intermingle with Allopocockiidae , the spirobolid genus Aztecolus Chamberlin, 1943 , and four additional families – Hoffmanobolidae , Messicobolidae , Spirobolellidae , and Rhinocricidae , the dominant Neotropical family – to produce a continuous range on the continental land mass extending into southern South America. Bueno-Villegas et al. (2004) summarized Mexican records, the southernmost in Baja California Sur, Eurhinocricus fissus Verhoeff, 1937 (Rhinocricidae) being near the southern tip of the peninsula, and the order also occurs on islands in the Gulf of California. While Spirobolida have not been recorded from the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos, Rhinocricidae are widespread in the Greater and Lesser Antilles, where they occur sympatrically with Spirobolellidae ( Hoffman 1969c, 1999; Pérez-Asso 1998).

The global distribution of Rhinocricidae has been mapped three times ( Kraus 1966, 1978; Marek et al. 2003); all omit Chile and are similar except for northern borders in both the New and Old Worlds. From Cuba and Central America southward, the familial distribution is essentially that of the order, for which we adopt the latest map ( Marek et al. 2003). An obscure publication ( Hounsome 1994) reported Rhinocricidae from the Cayman Islands (Grand and Little Cayman); Chamberlin (1950b) recorded the family from Cocos Island, Costa Rica, misreported as Cocos (Keeling) island in the Indian Ocean ( Marek et al. 2003); and Pocock (1890) and Hoffman (1979a) documented Pachybolidae from Fernando de Noronha. The only remaining question is the southern boundary of the order and family in South America. Chamberlin (1957) transferred two Chilean species described by Gervais from Julus to Rhinocricus but added that the assignment was tentative because recent Chilean collections had not contained representatives of either the family or order; without authentic documentation, we too exclude Chile as well as adjoining desert regions of Peru and Bolivia. Chamberlin (1950b) reported Rhinocricidae from Santa Fe and San Luis provs., Argentina; the latter is in the west around the latitude of Buenos Aires, so the boundary lies substantially west of where it is shown in prior maps. Farther south, we report (Appendix) Rhinocricidae from Parque Nacional los Alerces, on the Chilean border in the Andean Cordillera of Chubut Prov. (42 o 48’27" S, 71 o 53’56" W), which along with Isla Grande de Chiloé, Chile, are the southernmost localities of Chilognatha and all subordinate taxa in the Western Hemisphere. Neither colleagues nor searches in ecological as well as taxonomic literature revealed more southerly records, so for now the southern boundaries of Chilognatha and Spirobolida are at this latitude.

The only indigenous African family is Pachybolidae , and maps in Lawrence (1967), Enghoff (1977), and Wesener et al. (2008) supplement the list by Hamer (1998). The northernmost locality is Tombouctou, Mali, and the curvilinear border passes through Sierra Leone, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia. A surprise to us is the absence of authentic records from southern Democratic Republic of the Congo, all of Zambia, Angola, Botswana, and Namibia, and the northern 1/3 of the Republic of South Africa; consequently, the range exhibits a strong indentation in southern Africa with a north/south lacuna of ~ 2,816 km (1,760 mi) along the west coast. It extends inland for fully of the breadth of the continent (~ 2,240 km [1,400 mi]); continuity between occurrences in the Cape Region of the Republic of South Africa and the transcontinental area arising in Tanzania is a variably narrow strip (~ 640 km [400 mi] wide) along the Indian Ocean through Mozambique, Malawi, and eastern Zimbabwe. Indigenous representatives of Spirobolida also occur on Bioko, Zanzibar, Madagascar, Mauritius, Rodriguez, the Seychelles, and Comoros Islands ( Butler 1876, 1879; Mauriès 1980b; Golovatch and Korsós 1992; Mauriès and Geoffroy 1999; Enghoff 2003; VandenSpiegel and Golovatch 2007; Appendix).

For Asia, we added spirobolidan localities cited by Jeekel (2001c), Enghoff et al. (2004), and Enghoff (2005) to the rhinocricid map of Marek et al. (2003). Localities cluster in southern peninsular India and Sri Lanka without connecting to the northeastern area, so we show them as separate and incorporate records from the Maldive and Lakshadweep Islands that we consider indigenous although they may represent human introductions. Apparently native spirobolidans inhabit even smaller and more isolated islands in western Oceania, so the probability that these represent indigenous occurrences seems greater. The large Asian area lying southeast of the Mongolian Cretaceous fossil, Gobiulus sabulosus Dzik, 1975 ( Fig. 1 , 5 , 14 , 24-25 , 28 , inverted triangle), excludes the main Japanese islands and the Korean Peninsula, angles southwestward from north of Beijing through Sichuan Prov., China, northern Myanmar, Bhutan, and eastern India (Assam, Darjeeling District, West Bengal (Appendix)), then angles southeastward encompassing all of Myanmar, the Malay and Indochina peninsulas, and all of Indonesia, while excluding the Anadaman and Nicobar Islands. The Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands are included along with eastern Australia, Lord Howe Island, the North Island of New Zealand, and such western Oceanic islands as Fiji, Truk / Pohnpei /Ulithi Atoll, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam / Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands, and the Republic of Palau. Finally, this area includes a moderately broad strip along the east coasts of Queensland and New South Wales that extends to Cape York.

Figures

Figure 1. Known (solid lines) and projected (dashed lines) indigenous distributions of the Diplopoda showing locations of significant fossils. The solid line in southern South America shows the extent of diplopod samplings and known occurrences, but we project the organisms for uninvestigated areas south of the southernmost records, in Isla Grande de Chiloé, Chile, and Santa Cruz Prov., Argentina, the unsubstantiated record of the polyxenid from the last (Mauriès 1998), Propolyxenus patagonicus (Silvestri, 1903), being indicated by the question mark. Except for records from Kodiak Island, Alaska (Chordeumatida) (left arrow), the Hawaiian Islands (Cambalidea), and the Federal Republic of the Marshall Islands (Polyxenida) (right arrow), oceanic islands and archipelagos harboring ostensibly indigenous forms are grouped with the continent with apparent faunal affinity; the Cape Verde Islands are combined with both Africa and Europe because of dual affinities, Spirostreptidea and Glomerida/ Julida, respectively. Only a few records and samples, especially of Chilognatha, are available from the dotted areas in Africa and North America; no extant records and samples are available from those in Eurasia and South America. The southeast Asian area encircled by triangles is the only place where all 16 orders occur indigenously. Upright triangle, site of Archidesmus macnioli Peach, 1887, the oldest helminthomorph fossil, from Silurian deposits in Scotland; Star, site of the non-spinose oniscomorph pentazonian Carboniferous fossil at Mazon Creek, Illinois, USA; Inverted triangle, approximate location of Gobiulus sabulosus Dzik, 1975, the Cretaceous spirobolidan fossil in Mongolia; Asterisk, location of Protosilvestria sculpta, the Oligocene cambalidean fossil from Quercy, France (Mauriès 1992).

Figure 28. Distribution of the Order Spirobolida, parameters as in Fig. 1. Inverted triangle, location of Gobiulus sabulosus Dzik, 1975, the Cretaceous fossil from Mongolia.

Figure 5-6. Distributions. 5)Known (solid lines) and projected (dashed lines) indigenous distributions of the Subclass Chilognatha showing the locations of significant fossils, parameters as in Fig. 1. It is essentially identical to that of the Infraclass Helminthomorpha (Fig. 14), the only difference being imperceptibly greater eastward expansion for Chilognatha on the southern coast of Western Australia. At present, this is the only place in the world where the Infraclass Pentazonia (Fig. 6) influences the overall distribution of a higher diplopod taxon. Upright triangle, site of Archidesmus macnioli Peach, 1887, the oldest helminthomorph fossil, from Silurian deposits in Scotland; Star, site of the non-spinose oniscomorph pentazonian Carboniferous fossil at Mazon Creek, Illinois, USA; Inverted triangle, approximate location of Gobiulus sabulosus Dzik, 1975, the Cretaceous spirobolidan fossil from Mongolia; Asterisk, location of Protosilvestria sculpta, the Oligocene cambalidean fossil in Quercy, France (Mauriès 1992). 6) Distribution of the Infraclass Pentazonia, which presently excludes the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. The question mark represents the unconfirmed Oniscomorpha (Sphaerotheriida) record from Papua New Guinea (Attems 1943), and the arrow denotes the new Limacomorpha/Glomeridesmida locality in Fiji (Appendix). Star, site of the non-spinose oniscomorph Carboniferous fossil at Mazon Creek, Illinois, USA.

Figure 14-15. Distributions. 14) Known (solid lines) and projected (dashed lines) distributions of the Infraclass Helminthomorpha showing the locations of significant fossils, parameters as in Fig. 1. It differs from that of the Subclass Chilognatha (Fig. 5) in the imperceptibly shorter length along the southern coast of Western Australia, the only place where Pentazonia have been taken without helminthomorphs. Upright triangle, site of Archidesmus macnioli Peach, 1887, the oldest fossil, from Silurian deposits in Scotland; Inverted triangle, approximate location of Gobiulus sabulosus Dzik, 1975, the Cretaceous spirobolidan fossil from Mongolia; Asterisk, location of Protosilvestria sculpta, the Oligocene cambalidean fossil in Quercy, France (Mauriès 1992). 15) Known (solid lines) and projected (dashed lines) distribution of the Subterclass Colobognatha. The question marks in Australia represent generalized records from Northern Territory, South Australia, and “Upper Western Australia” by Black (1997). Some point localities probably represent the ubiquitous, introduced polyzoniidan (Siphonotidae), Rhinotus purpureus (Pocock, 1894).

Figure 23-25. Distributions. 23) Distribution of the “minor” orders. Star/Circled Areas, Siphonocryptida (Colobognatha); Dots, Siphoniulida (Helminthomorpha incertae sedis). 24) Known (solid lines) and projected (dashed lines) distributions of the Subterclass Eugnatha showing the locations of significant fossils. The arrow points to the Kodiak Island, Alaska, USA, record of Chordeumatida (Tingupidae). Inverted triangle, approximate location of Gobiulus sabulosus Dzik, 1975, the Cretaceous spirobolidan fossil from Mongolia; Asterisk, location of Protosilvestria sculpta, the Oligocene cambalidean fossil in Quercy, France (Mauriès 1992). 25) Known (solid lines) and projected (dashed lines) distributions of the Superorder Juliformia showing the locations of significant fossils. Parameters as in Fig. 1 except no records or samples are available from the dotted area in North America, the Great Basin Physiographic Province, western USA. Inverted triangle, approximate location of Gobiulus sabulosus Dzik, 1975, the Cretaceous spirobolidan fossil from Mongolia; Asterisk, location of Protosilvestria sculpta, the Oligocene cambalidean fossil in Quercy, France (Mauriès 1992). The question mark indicates the generalized record of Epinannolenidea from Northern Territory, Australia (Black 1997).