Oniscomorpha

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 : 17

Superorder Oniscomorpha ( Fig. 8 )

Oniscomorpha occupy ten areas on all continents except South America, with a questionable sphaerotheriidan record from the Bismarck Archipelago, Papua New Guinea (Attens 1943). They traverse the Equator and both Tropics, and terminate in southern Scandinavia well south of the Arctic Circle. The detached Libyan site is near Benghazi, east of the Gulf of Sidra.

Areas in the New World, Europe/north Africa, and central Asia attribute solely to Glomerida as may the Paleozoic/Carboniferous fossil from Illinois, USA ( Fig. 8-9 , star); those in southern Africa/ Madagascar /Indian Ocean, Australia / New Zealand, and India / Sri Lanka represent Sphaerotheriida ; and that in east/southeastern Asia represents both orders, which are sympatric and highly congruent here (compare Fig. 9 and 13). Both encompass the Indochina and Malay peninsulas, Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia from Sulawesi westward, and the Philippines. Both also exhibit a narrow dactyliform extension that runs westward through eastern India, Bhutan, and the eastern half of Nepal. Sphaerotheriida ranges farther eastward in Indonesia, around Halmahera, and Glomerida spread substantially farther north, encircling Taiwan, coastal China to the Shangdong Peninsula, most of the Korean Peninsula, and the Ryukyu Islands and “mainland” Japan northward to central Honshu. The northernmost sphaerotheriidan locality is Fuzhou, Fujian Prov., China, ~ 1,080 km (675 mi) south of the northernmost glomeridan, but Sphaerotheriida extend farther inland.

Figures

Figure 7-9. Distributions. 7) Distributions of the Superorder Limacomorpha and the order Glomeridesmida, at present excluding the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. The arrow denotes the new record from Fiji (Appendix). 8) Distribution of the Superorder Oniscomorpha. Star, site of the non-spinose Carboniferous fossil from Mazon Creek, Illinois, USA. 9) Distribution of the Order Glomerida, parameters as in Fig. 1, 6.