Mecistocephalus angusticeps ( Ribaut, 1914 )

Popovici, George, Edgecombe, Gregory D. & Hall, Daniel W., 2024, New Chilopoda from the Chagos Archipelago, Journal of Natural History 58 (41 - 44), pp. 1885-1915 : 1900

Mecistocephalus angusticeps ( Ribaut, 1914)

Material examined

1 ♀, 47 leg-bearing segments, NHMUK015619675 , Chagos Archipelago, Egmont Atoll, Ile Sudest, 04 June–July 1972, leg. M.J.D. Hirons; 1 juvenile, 47 leg-bearing segments, same collection data as preceding .

Remarks

This species has been previously recorded from a site on the Kenyan coast ( Ribaut 1914) and a few coastal localities in the Seychelles ( Demange 1981b; Bonato and Minelli 2010). The record from the Chagos Archipelago represents another coastal locality. Morphological variation in M. angusticeps remains poorly documented due to the small number of specimens that have been described and illustrated in past literature. The present specimens agree in all diagnostic characters with the material redescribed by Bonato and Minelli (2010) from the Seychelles, so a redescription is not presented herein. This implies a larger distribution is possible for M. angusticeps , potentially including other coastal sites in the Western Indian Ocean. Potential channels of introduction to the Chagos Archipelago, as well as the current status of M. angusticeps in light of its absence from the material recently collected from Diego Garcia, remain a matter of speculation, although its prevalence near coastal sites suggests natural dispersal as a possibility.