''Palaeosoma'' is an extinct genus of

archipolypoda Archipolypoda is an extinct group of millipedes known from fossils in Europe and North America and containing the earliest known land animals. The Archipolypoda was erected by Scudder (1882) but redefined in 2005 with the description of sever ...

millipede Millipedes are a group of arthropods that are characterised by having two pairs of jointed legs on most body segments; they are known scientifically as the class Diplopoda, the name derived from this feature. Each double-legged segment is a resu ...

s from the

upper Carboniferous Upper may refer to: * Shoe upper or ''vamp'', the part of a shoe on the top of the foot * Stimulant Stimulants (also often referred to as psychostimulants or colloquially as uppers) is an overarching term that covers many drugs including those ...

of England and Poland. Individuals grew to nearly long and possessed defensive glands ( ozopores) located on small raised nodes on the outer edges of the upper surface of each body segment. Species of ''Palaeosoma'' were once considered members of the family Euphoberiidae, which contains species with prominent spines, but are now classified in their own family (Paleosomatidae) and own order (Palaeosomatida), as they lack spines and have a combination of features not seen in other

Paleozoic The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838 by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ' ...

millipedes.Hannibal, J. (2005
A new occurrence of the millipede ''Palaeosoma'' (Archipolypoda) in the Carboniferous of Silesia, Poland, and its implications for the distribution of millipede genera in the tropics of Euroamerica during the Pennsylvanian
Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs.

References

†Palaeosoma Prehistoric myriapod genera Carboniferous myriapods Fossil taxa described in 1919 Fossils of Poland Fossils of Great Britain {{Paleo-myriapod-stub