Xyloiuloidea

Xyloiuloidea is an extinct superfamily of millipedes that existed from the Lower Devonian through the Upper Pennsylvanian period in Europe and North America.

Xyloiuloidea
Temporal range: Lower Devonian–Pennsylvanian[1]
Xyloiulus mazonus
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Arthropoda
Subphylum:
Myriapoda
Class:
Diplopoda
Superorder:
Juliformia
Order:
incertae sedis
Superfamily:
†Xyloiuloidea

Cook, 1895
Families

Description

Xyloiuloids are more or less cylindrical, with sternites, pleurites, and tergites of each body segment fused into a complete ring. Adults possess 40 to 50 body rings. The legs are no longer than half the height of the body. The body surface is marked by small parallel grooves (striations), which vary in surface coverage between xyloiuloid families.[1]

Taxonomy

Xyloiuloidea comprises four families:

The taxonomic history of Xyloiuloidea begins with Orator F. Cook designating the family Xyloiulidae in 1895. In 1969, Richard L. Hoffman established the families Nyraniidae and Plagiascetidae, and placed all three extinct families in the extant (still-living) order Spirobolida, as suborder "Xyloiulidea".[2] In 2006, two new species were described and placed in the new family Gaspestriidae, and group was reassigned as a superfamily of uncertain status (incertae sedis) within the juliform millipedes, a group that includes the cylindrical, fused-bodied orders Spirobolida, Spirostreptida, and Julida.[1]

References
  1. Wilson, Heather M. (2006). "Juliformian millipedes from the lower Devonian of Euramerica: implications for the timing of millipede cladogenesis in the Paleozoic". Journal of Paleontology. 80 (4): 638–649. doi:10.1666/0022-3360(2006)80[638:JMFTLD]2.0.CO;2.
  2. Hoffman, Richard L., 1969. Myriapoda, exclusive of Insecta. R572–R606. In: Moore, R.C. (Ed.), Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, Part R, Vol. 2. Geological Society of America and University of Kansas Press, Lawrence, KS.


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