View article

A new species of the widely distributed centipede genus Scolopocryptops Newport, 1845 is described from Trinidad based on light microscopic documentation. Scolopocryptops sukuyann. sp. is remarkable for being the only centipede known to have 25 leg-bearing segments in the trunk. The new species resembles Scolocryptops melanostoma Newport, 1845 in the shape of the cephalic plate and the coxosternal tooth plates and resembles S. miersii Newport, 1845 in the process of the forcipular trochanteroprefemur. It differs from both by the number of leg-bearing trunk segments (25 vs 23) and lengths of the thickened chitinous bands on the tooth plates, coxopleural process, and spinous prefemoral processes. Its systematic position within Scolopendromorpha, in which all but one of ca 700 species have either 21 or 23 segments and this number is mostly constant within families, indicates a trend of segment …