Diamondback Soil Centipede
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Diamondback Soil Centipede
''Geophilus vittatus'', also known as the diamondback soil centipede, is a species of soil centipede in the family Geophilidae The Geophilidae are a polyphyletic, cosmopolitan family of soil centipedes in the superfamily Geophiloidea containing the mostly defunct clades Aphilodontidae, Dignathodontidae, Linotaeniidae, Chilenophilinae, and Macronicophilidae. Species in ... widespread in North America and named for the dark band of diamond-shaped markings across its back. ''G. vittatus'' grows up to 52 millimeters in length, though it averages 25–40, and ranges from brown- to orange-yellow in color, with 49–53 leg pairs in females, 49–51 leg pairs in males, and a lack of consolidated carpophagus structures. It can be found under any debris on the forest floor, but mostly under loose bark and occasionally near the sea. Taxonomy ''G. rubens (Say, 1821) synonymy with ''G. vittatus'' was proved by Hoffman & Crabill (1953), and was originally very likely based on a specime ...
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Constantine Samuel Rafinesque
Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz (; October 22, 1783September 18, 1840) was a French 19th-century polymath born near Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire and self-educated in France. He traveled as a young man in the United States, ultimately settling in Ohio in 1815, where he made notable contributions to botany, zoology, and the study of prehistoric earthworks in North America. He also contributed to the study of ancient Mesoamerican linguistics, in addition to work he had already completed in Europe. Rafinesque was an eccentric and erratic genius. He was an autodidact, who excelled in various fields of knowledge, as a zoologist, botanist, writer and polyglot. He wrote prolifically on such diverse topics as anthropology, biology, geology, and linguistics, but was honored in none of these fields during his lifetime. Indeed, he was an outcast in the American scientific community whose submissions were rejected automatically by leading journals. Among his theories were th ...
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Ralph Vary Chamberlin
Ralph Vary Chamberlin (January 3, 1879October 31, 1967) was an American biologist, ethnographer, and historian from Salt Lake City, Utah. He was a faculty member of the University of Utah for over 25 years, where he helped establish the School of Medicine and served as its first dean, and later became head of the zoology department. He also taught at Brigham Young University and the University of Pennsylvania, and worked for over a decade at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, where he described species from around the world. Chamberlin was a prolific taxonomist who named over 4,000 new animal species in over 400 scientific publications. He specialized in arachnids (spiders, scorpions, and relatives) and myriapods (centipedes, millipedes, and relatives), ranking among the most prolific arachnologists and myriapodologists in history. He described over 1,400 species of spiders, 1,000 species of millipedes, and the majority of North American centipedes, althoug ...
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Species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. Other ways of defining species include their karyotype, DNA sequence, morphology, behaviour or ecological niche. In addition, paleontologists use the concept of the chronospecies since fossil reproduction cannot be examined. The most recent rigorous estimate for the total number of species of eukaryotes is between 8 and 8.7 million. However, only about 14% of these had been described by 2011. All species (except viruses) are given a two-part name, a "binomial". The first part of a binomial is the genus to which the species belongs. The second part is called the specific name or the specific epithet (in botanical nomenclature, also sometimes i ...
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Geophilomorpha
The centipedes or Chilopoda are divided into the following orders. Scutigeromorpha The Scutigeromorpha are anamorphic, reaching 15 leg-bearing segments in length. Also known as house centipedes, they are very fast creatures, and able to withstand falling at great speed: they reach up to 15 body lengths per second when dropped, surviving the fall. They are the only centipede group to retain their original compound eyes, within which a crystalline layer analogous to that seen in chelicerates and insects can be observed. They also bear long and multi-segmented antennae. Adaptation to a burrowing lifestyle has led to the degeneration of compound eyes in other orders; this feature is of great use in phylogenetic analysis. The group is the sole extant representative of the Notostigmophora, defined by having a single spiracle opening at the posterior of each dorsal plate. The more derived groups bear a plurality of spiracular openings on their sides, and are termed the Pleurostigmopho ...
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Family (biology)
Family ( la, familia, plural ') is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between order and genus. A family may be divided into subfamilies, which are intermediate ranks between the ranks of family and genus. The official family names are Latin in origin; however, popular names are often used: for example, walnut trees and hickory trees belong to the family Juglandaceae, but that family is commonly referred to as the "walnut family". What belongs to a family—or if a described family should be recognized at all—are proposed and determined by practicing taxonomists. There are no hard rules for describing or recognizing a family, but in plants, they can be characterized on the basis of both vegetative and reproductive features of plant species. Taxonomists often take different positions about descriptions, and there may be no broad consensus across the scientific community for some time. The publishing of new data and opini ...
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Geophilidae
The Geophilidae are a polyphyletic, cosmopolitan family of soil centipedes in the superfamily Geophiloidea containing the mostly defunct clades Aphilodontidae, Dignathodontidae, Linotaeniidae, Chilenophilinae, and Macronicophilidae. Species in this family are characterized by mandibles with a single pectinate lamella, slender antennae, sternal pores with variable arrangement, a generally slightly or moderately elongate head, frequently undivided coxosternite with two paramedian sclerotized lines, claws without rows of filament, and female gonopods usually being an undivided lamina. Compared to most other families in the suborder Adesmata, this family features a modest number of leg-bearing segments (no more than 125) and limited variation in this number within each species. Two species in this family include centipedes with only 29 pairs of legs: ''Geophilus persephones'' (29 pairs in the only specimen, a male), and '' G. richardi'' (29 or 31 pairs in the males and 33 pairs in ...
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Forest Floor
The forest floor, also called detritus, duff and the O horizon, is one of the most distinctive features of a forest ecosystem. It mainly consists of shed vegetative parts, such as leaves, branches, bark, and stems, existing in various stages of decomposition above the soil surface. Although principally composed of non-living organic material, the forest floor also teems with a wide variety of fauna and flora. It is one of the richest components of the ecosystem from the standpoint of biodiversity because of the large number of decomposers and predators present, mostly belonging to invertebrates, fungi, algae, bacteria, and archaea. Certain (adapted) plants may be more apparent in tropical forests, where rates of metabolism and species diversity are much higher than in colder climates. The major compartments for the storage of organic matter and nutrients within systems are the living vegetation, forest floor, and soil. The forest floor serves as a bridge between the ab ...
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Strigamia Bidens
''Strigamia'' is a genus of soil centipedes in the family Linotaeniidae. Members of this family can be identified by their anteriorly tapering bodies, the extra claw on the forcipules (venom-injecting fangs), scattered coxal pores, and the distinctly swollen ultimate legs of the males. There are at least 50 described species in ''Strigamia''. This genus includes the species ''S. hoffmani'', notable for its small size (no more than 16 mm long) and for having relatively few legs (33 or 35 pairs in males, 35 or 37 in females). Species These 52 species belong to the genus ''Strigamia'': * '' Strigamia acuminata'' Leach (1815) * ''Strigamia alokosternum'' Attems (1927) * '' Strigamia auxa'' Chamberlin, 1954 * '' Strigamia bicolor'' Shinohara 1981 * '' Strigamia bidens'' Wood, 1862 * ''Strigamia bothriopus'' Wood, 1862 * ''Strigamia branneri'' Bollman C.H. (1888) * '' Strigamia carmela'' Chamberlin, 1941 * '' Strigamia caucasia'' Verhoeff (1938) * '' Strigamia cephalica'' Wood 1862 * ' ...
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Geophilus
''Geophilus '' is a large, heterogeneous genus of soil centipedes in the family Geophilidae largely considered to be synonymous with '' Brachygeophilus''. It is a mostly holarctic genus characterized by a claw-shaped ultimate pretarsus, anterior porefields, complete or nearly complete coxo-pleural sutures at the prosternum, and incomplete chitin-lines. The generic name first appeared in Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclopaedia in 1814 as ''Geophilus electricus''. Although centipedes in this genus can have as many as 89 pairs of legs, most species have a much smaller number of leg pairs. For example, two species in this genus include centipedes with only 29 pairs of legs, the lowest number found in the family Geophilidae: '' G. persephones'' (29 pairs in the only specimen, a male) and '' G. richardi'' (29 or 31 pairs in males and 33 pairs in females). This genus also includes other species with notably few legs, for example, ''G. hadesi'' (33 pairs in both males and females) and ''G ...
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Arthropods Of North America
Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and cuticle made of chitin, often mineralised with calcium carbonate. The arthropod body plan consists of segments, each with a pair of appendages. Arthropods are bilaterally symmetrical and their body possesses an external skeleton. In order to keep growing, they must go through stages of moulting, a process by which they shed their exoskeleton to reveal a new one. Some species have wings. They are an extremely diverse group, with up to 10 million species. The haemocoel, an arthropod's internal cavity, through which its haemolymph – analogue of blood – circulates, accommodates its interior organs; it has an open circulatory system. Like their exteriors, the internal organs of arthropods are generally built of repeated segments. Their nervous system is "ladder-lik ...
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Animals Described In 1820
Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, are able to move, can reproduce sexually, and go through an ontogenetic stage in which their body consists of a hollow sphere of cells, the blastula, during embryonic development. Over 1.5 million living animal species have been described—of which around 1 million are insects—but it has been estimated there are over 7 million animal species in total. Animals range in length from to . They have complex interactions with each other and their environments, forming intricate food webs. The scientific study of animals is known as zoology. Most living animal species are in Bilateria, a clade whose members have a bilaterally symmetric body plan. The Bilateria include the protostomes, containing animals such as nematodes, arthropods, flatworms, annelids and molluscs, and the deuterostomes, containing the echinoderms and ...
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