Spirobolida

Spirobolida
	Narceus americanus
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Diplopoda
Superorder:	Juliformia
Order:	Spirobolida; Bollman, 1893
Families
	12: See text
Synonyms
	Anocheta Cook, 1895 Haplogonophora Brolemann, 1931

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]

Front and rear views of the anterior (A, B) and posterior left (C, D) gonopods of a spirobolidan

The families are divided into two suborders:[1]

Suborder Spirobolidea

Suborder Trigoniulidea

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

References

Shear, W. (2011). "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" (PDF). Zootaxa. 3148: 159–164.
Stephen P. Hopkin & Helen J. Read (1992). "Taxonomy, evolution, and zoogeography". The Biology of millipedes. Oxford University Press. pp. 8–23. ISBN 978-0-19-857699-0.
"Putative apomorphies of millipede clades" (PDF). Milli-PEET: Millipede Systematics. The Field Museum, Chicago, IL. 26 September 2006.

External links

Media related to Spirobolida at Wikimedia Commons
Data related to Spirobolida at Wikispecies
"Spirobolida" at the Encyclopedia of Life

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[Shear_2011-1] Shear, W. (2011). "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" (PDF). Zootaxa. 3148: 159–164.

[Hopkin-2] Stephen P. Hopkin & Helen J. Read (1992). "Taxonomy, evolution, and zoogeography". The Biology of millipedes. Oxford University Press. pp. 8–23. ISBN 978-0-19-857699-0.

[PutativeApomorphies-3] "Putative apomorphies of millipede clades" (PDF). Milli-PEET: Millipede Systematics. The Field Museum, Chicago, IL. 26 September 2006.