Spirobolida Explained

Spirobolida is an order of "round-backed" millipedes containing approximately 500 species in 12 families.^[1] Its members are distinguished by the presence of a "pronounced suture that runs "vertically down the front of the head".^[2] Most of the species live in the tropics, and many are brightly coloured.^[2] Mature males have two pairs of modified legs, the gonopods, consisting of the 8th and 9th leg pair: the posterior gonopods are used in sperm-transfer while the anterior gonopods are fused into a single plate-like structure.^[3] The families are divided into two suborders:^[1]

Suborder Spirobolidea

• Allopocockiidae
• Atopetholidae
• Floridobolidae
• Hoffmanobolidae
• Messicobolidae
• Pseudospirobolellidae
• Rhinocricidae
• Spirobolellidae
• Spirobolidae
• Typhlobolellidae

Suborder Trigoniulidea

• Pachybolidae
• Trigoniulidae

Select species

• Narceus americanus, a commonly seen species in eastern North America
• Crurifarcimen vagans, the "wandering leg sausage"
• Anadenobolus monilicornis, the yellow-banded millipede
• Eucarlia, a genus of threatened Indo-Pacific millipedes

Notes and References

1. Shear. W.. Class Diplopoda de Blainville in Gervais, 1844. In: Zhang, Z.-Q. (Ed.) Animal biodiversity: An outline of higher-level classification and survey of taxonomic richness. Zootaxa. 2011. 3148. 159–164. Shear2011.
2. Book: Stephen P. Hopkin & Helen J. Read . 1992 . The Biology of millipedes . . 978-0-19-857699-0 . Taxonomy, evolution, and zoogeography . 8–23 .
3. Web site: Putative apomorphies of millipede clades. Milli-PEET: Millipede Systematics. The Field Museum, Chicago, IL. 26 September 2006.