Colobognatha, Brandt, 1834

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 : 21-22

Subterclass Colobognatha ( Fig. 15 -16)

cality in Sierra Leone represents a polyzoniidan species described by Cook (1896) that may also occur on St. Helena ( Hoffman 1977b), but both may also reflect introduced R. purpureus , as may the site just off the coast of Guinea. The southern coastal band in the Republic of South Africa, the only definitely indigenous sub-Saharan occurrence, involves both Polyzoniida and Siphonophorida ; both orders also inhabit the Seychelles, while the former occupies Mauritius and Réunion.

Asian occurrences include Sri Lanka ( Siphonophorida ), narrow strips along the southwestern Caspian Sea from Azerbaijan to Iran ( Platydesmida ) and the Himalayas from northern Pakistan through Nepal and Bhutan to eastern India and perhaps northern Myanmar ( Polyzoniida , Siphonophorida ). A small detached circular area ( Polyzoniida ) straddles the Arctic Circle in Yakutia, Russia (Mikhaljova 2004, Golovatch 2009), lying north of a long, irregular, east-west band that spreads across subarctic Siberia/ central Russia and dips southward into Mongolia. The final Eurasian area, containing all four components, extends from Kamchatka, Sakhalin, and Far Eastern Russia to southern Indonesia (Sumatra to Flores) and, east/west, from the Bonin Islands and Halmahera to eastern Myanmar, excluding parts of coastal China, northern Honshu and Hokkaido, Japan, and the Kurile Islands, Russia.

Colobognatha occupy the southwestern and southeastern corners of Australia with generalized records from Northern Territory, South Australia, and northern Western Australia. A large area, representing Polyzoniida and Siphonophorida , encircles the North Island of New Zealand, central coastal Queensland, Australia, Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia, Samoa, Tuvalu, Tonga, and Fiji. It crosses the eastern arm of the Island of New Guinea ( Papua New Guinea) and may join with the southeast Asian area, but without records from Irian Jaya and western Papua New Guinea, we consider them separate.

Figures

Figure 14-15. Distributions. 14) Known (solid lines) and projected (dashed lines) distributions of the Infraclass Helminthomorpha showing the locations of significant fossils, parameters as in Fig. 1. It differs from that of the Subclass Chilognatha (Fig. 5) in the imperceptibly shorter length along the southern coast of Western Australia, the only place where Pentazonia have been taken without helminthomorphs. Upright triangle, site of Archidesmus macnioli Peach, 1887, the oldest fossil, from Silurian deposits in Scotland; Inverted triangle, approximate location of Gobiulus sabulosus Dzik, 1975, the Cretaceous spirobolidan fossil from Mongolia; Asterisk, location of Protosilvestria sculpta, the Oligocene cambalidean fossil in Quercy, France (Mauriès 1992). 15) Known (solid lines) and projected (dashed lines) distribution of the Subterclass Colobognatha. The question marks in Australia represent generalized records from Northern Territory, South Australia, and “Upper Western Australia” by Black (1997). Some point localities probably represent the ubiquitous, introduced polyzoniidan (Siphonotidae), Rhinotus purpureus (Pocock, 1894).