Juliformia, Attems, 1926

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 : 29

Superorder Juliformia ( Fig. 25 )

Juliformia occur broadly across all continents except Australia, where they occupy the eastern and southeastern margins and two small coastal areas in Western Australia, with generalized records from Northern Territory, South Australia, and “Upper Western Australia ” ( Black 1997). The taxon spans the Equator and both Tropics in the Western Hemisphere and Australasia, slightly crossing the Arctic Circle in Iceland and Europe (Scandinavia). Its known or projected area encompasses all Caribbean, Mediterranean, Atlantic, and Indian Ocean islands occupied by Eugnatha except Sokotra, and all of the East Indies, the Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomon Islands, and New Caledonia and associated islands. Juliformia are native to numerous small oceanic islands and archipelagos: Bermuda, Fernando Noronha, Madeira, the Azores, Canaries, Cape Verdes, Bioko, both São Tomé and Principe, Cocos I., the Hawaiians, Fiji, Palau, Truk, Pohnpei, Ulithi Atoll, Saipan, Guam, Lord Howe, Mauritius, Rodriguez, the Maldives, Nicobars, Seychelles, and Comoros. While some representatives thrive in harsh, arid environments (for example spirostreptideans in the Namib and Kalahari deserts of Africa and the Sonoran and Chihuahuan in the US / Mexico), others do not, so the largest gaps in what would otherwise be subcontinuous global occurrences are in deserts like the Atacama in South America, the Sahara in Africa, the Arabian in the Middle East, the Gobi in Asia, and the interior deserts of Australia. New World occurrence is primarily attributable to Julida (Parajulidae) , in North America, and Spirostreptidea (Spirostreptidae) and Spirobolida (Rhinocricidae) in Central/South America and the Caribbean. Occurrences in Europe, the Mediterranean coast of Africa, and the Middle East are almost exclusively Julida (particularly Julidae ); Spirostreptidea (Spirostreptidae) occur sympatrically along the eastern Mediterranean coast and alone account for part of the superordinal area in northwestern Africa ( Morocco). Sub-Saharan African distribution is nearly exclusively attributable to Spirostreptidea , while those in Asia, Australia, the East Indies, and Oceania involve combinations of taxa.

All three ordinal components – Julida , Spirobolida , and Spirostreptida s. l. ( Fig. 26 , 28-29 ) – occupy large, continuous areas in the Americas of varying dimensions, with three smaller spirostreptidan regions and a point locality of Spirobolida . Julida are restricted to the Northern Hemisphere, approaching the Equator in southeast Asia only ( Enghoff 1993a). Spirobolida and Spirostreptida s. l., however, inhabit substantial areas in the Southern Hemisphere, traverse the Tropic of Capricorn, and occupy the South Temperate Zone on all three southern continents, but Spirostreptida / Spirostreptidea do not show the large southwest African indentation in Spirobolida . Both orders are represented in the Indian Subcontinent, in contrast to Julida , whose only Indian occurrence is Assam, though it also exhibits a small, detached area in Nepal ( Fig. 26 ).

As the order Spirostreptida (sensu Hoffman 1980 a, Shelley 2003a) seems likely to be dismembered, we discuss and map all three presently recognized suborders.

Figures

Figure 26. Distribution of the Order Julida.

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 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 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).