Platydesmida

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 : 22-24

Order Platydesmida ( Fig. 17-19 )

rectly to the present focus when other familial genera are incorporated. We then scoured the literature, consolidated records, incorporated significant unpublished ones (Appendix), and determined ranges of non-US andrognathids and the nominate family, whose area encloses the only Mexican andrognathid ( Shear and Marek 2009). Papers with records and/or maps include Sinclair (1901), Chamberlin (1945), Chamberlin and Wang (1953), Y. Wang and Tang (1965), Buckett and Gardner (1969), Gardner (1975), Minelli (1976), Loksina and Golovatch (1979), Golovatch (1980a, 1981b), Strasser and Minelli (1984), Lewis (1984a, b), Ceuca (1992), Golovatch and Martens (1996), Mauriès et al. (1997), Mikhaljova et al. (2000), Korsós (2004), Enghoff et al. (2004), and Enghoff (2005, 2006). Additional literature citations are available in Causey (1954), Gardner (1975), and Shelley (2000a, 2002a).

Represented solely by Andrognathidae , Platydesmida occupy nine regions of the US. Shelley et al. (2005) documented five areas of Brachycybe in the east/southeastern US, which increases to seven when Andrognathus Cope, 1869 , is included ( Fig. 18 , Appendix). The three westernmost lie primarily west of the Mississippi River, while the large central area slightly crosses it in southeastern Missouri. The point locality in Virginia and the eastern area in North Carolina, which dips into South Carolina, represent Andrognathus , which also expands the ranges of the central area and that in southwestern Georgia and adjacent Florida. Distributions of other western US andrognathids consolidate the areas of Brachycybe in California and Oregon into a continuous one that arises at the Mexican border in San Diego Co., California, and extends northward to Benton Co., Oregon; occurrence in the northwestern corner of Baja California Norte, Mexico, is virtually certain. There is also a small area in northern Idaho, first reported by Causey (1954), that probably spreads westward into southeastern Washington and northeastern Oregon.

The southernmost New World area ( Fig. 17-18 ), representing the entire distribution of Platydesmidae , traverses the Tropic of Cancer and extends from central Nuevo León, Mexico, to the Former Canal Zone, Panama. It includes all or nearly all of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, but excludes the Yucatan Peninsula. Hoffman (1999) cited the order and nominate family from every Central American country except Belize, which we add (Appendix).

In Europe, Platydesmida / Andrognathidae occupy five areas ( Fig. 17 , 19 ), the two westernmost being point localities in Portugal and central France. Narrow strips extend along the Mediterranean Coast of northwestern Italy /southeastern France and the Adriatic Coast of northeastern Italy / Croatia. The largest area arises in northern Greece, traverses Albania and southern Italy (including Sicily), and crosses the Mediterranean into North Africa (northern Tunisia and northeastern Algeria) ( Pocock 1892b, Silvestri 1898a; Brolemann 1921).

We recognize six faunal regions of Platydesmida / Andrognathidae in Asia. Two are in Turkey ( Enghoff 2006), the more western comprising two point localities, and a narrow strip extends along the southwestern Caspian Sea from Azerbaijan to northwestern Iran. No locality was published, but Golovatch and Martens (1996) reported Platydesmida from Nepal. The largest areas are in east and southeastern Asia. The northern extends, north/south, from central Honshu through Taiwan, nipping the Tropic of Cancer and ranging westward over central coastal China and most of the Korean Peninsula (Shelley et al. 2005). The southeast Asian region is entirely tropical and the only one spanning the Equator. It includes the Indochina and Malay peninsulas and western Indonesia, extending from northern Vietnam (and doubtlessly also adjacent Yunnan Prov., China) to Sumatra, the Island of Borneo, and Wallace’s Line.

Figures

Figure 17. Distribution of the Order Platydesmida.

Figure 18. Distribution of Platydesmida in North America/the Western Hemisphere.

Figure 19-20. Distributions. 19) Distribution of Platydesmida in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. 20) Known (solid lines) and projected (dashed lines) distribution of the Order Polyzoniida, parameters as in Fig. 15.