File:Brimleyana (1997) (20389219166).jpg

Title: Brimleyana
Identifier: brimleyana19nort_12 (find matches)
Year: 1979 (1970s)
Authors: North Carolina State Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Zoology; Ecology; Natural history
Publisher: (Raleigh, NC : North Carolina State Museum of Natural History)
Contributing Library: State Library of North Carolina
Digitizing Sponsor: North Carolina Digital Heritage Center

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52 Rowland M. Shelley GENERAL INTRODUCTION Introduction Among the more readily identified scolopendromorph centipedes in North America and Europe, ones with 21 or 23 pairs of legs and pedal segments, are the representatives of the cryptopid subfamily Pluto- niuminae Bollman,1 a senior subjective synonym of Theatopinae Verhoeff, occasionally misspelled as "Theatopsinae."2 Recognizable to the unaided eye by their extremely robust ultimate legs (Fig. 1; see also Attems 1926, Fig. 433, and Shelley 1990a, Fig. 1), they also feature 21 leg pairs, a long caudal segment, roughly twice as long as the penultimate,
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Fig. 1. Theatops posticus, dorsal view. Scale line = 1.00 cm. and pale, lightly pigmented patches in the ocellar positions, lateral to the bases of the antennae. Crabill (1977) referred to the patches as "eyespots," an unfortunate term because these blind chilopods lack photoreceptors. The heavily sclerotized, forcipulate caudal legs are the most visible diagnostic feature, and according to Cloudsley-Thompson (1958) and Manton (1965), function to hold food. The plutoniuminines are thus convergent in this regard with the scolopendrid genus Cupipes Kohlrausch (compare Figs. 2-5, with Figs. 6-9). The Plutoniuminae is comprised of two genera—Plutonium Cavanna, monotypic with P. zwierleini Cavanna occurring in Spain and mainland Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia, and Theatops Newport, with one Palearctic !As noted by Wurmli (1975), Plutoniinae Bollman (1893) has priority by 13 years over Theatopinae Verhoeff (1906) as the senior name for this family-group taxon. However, Plutoniinae Bollman is preoccupied by the senior homonym, Plutoniinae Cockerell (1893) (Mollusca: Gastropoda), which has priority by one month. Shelley and Backeljau (1995) petitioned the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature to remove the homonymy but incorrectly believed Plutoniinae Bollman was the older name. By agreement of all parties, Plutoniinae Bollman is being emended to "Plutoniuminae"; this decision will be announced in a forthcoming issue of Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature. The present contribution is the first taxonomic usage of the corrected name. 2Confusion has existed as to formation of family-group names from genera with the "-ops" suffix, whether the "s" is retained or dropped. The genitive of this ending is "opis", of which the "is" is dropped to form family-group names, so the correct spelling is "Theatopinae" rather than "Theatopsinae."

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