Another Peruvian Pede in need of ID

[PAUL BOLLINGER]

Location: 40nm North of Iquitos, Peru.

Any Ideas?

Thanks,
Paul Bollinger

 

[cacoseraph]

well, i was never great at ID'ing nonUSA centipedes and now i am just plain bad... but i would like to see a shot of the spiracles just to confirm that this is a Scolopendridae family and not Oto.

the terminal legs look a bit thin for me to be want to say Scolopendra sp. just yet


edit:
it's a real sharp looking centipede, for sure


also, what is the body length on the various specimens?

 

[PAUL BOLLINGER]

Thanks for the Reply

I'm told it's 9cm.
I'm thinking Rhysida ssp. because of the terminals...
Thanks,
Paul

 

[cacoseraph]

yeah, something along those lines is kind of my thought, too


i bet one of the hardcore centipede guys might be able to at least have a hint of what it is from the oblique view of the spiracles in the first picture. i have lost pretty much all my "sensitivity" to that sort of thing

 

[peterbourbon]

Hi,

most probably Scolopocryptops melanostomus.

Cheers
Turgut

 

[cacoseraph]

and that is why i fail


does this centipede really not have any eyes? now that i look back at the pictures it looks like you are absolutely correct


to explain: there is a large chunk of the scolopendromorpha giant centipede taxonomy that completely lacks eyes. typically they are colored more plainly that this specimen is so i didn't even then of it... that is a sweet blind centipede, man!

edit:
a very nice diagnostic for Scolopocryptopidae species is that they possess 23 pairs of walking legs, compared to (afaik) every one else having 21 pairs.

their is a blind family that has 21 leg pairs, so not all blind centipedes will have 23

edit2:
one of the 21 legpair blind centipede genera is kind of cool looking. Theatops possess "swollen" terminal legs and an extended length terminal body segment http://www.google.com/images?q=theatops&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1024&bih=655




edit3: yeah, totally has 23 legpairs (you DO count the terminals but NOT the venom forciples) so Scolopocryptops... my failure is complete =P

 

[PAUL BOLLINGER]

Many Thanks!

Yeah it lacks eyes! But as I understand it, they make up for it with good really good hearing

Thanks again for the ID

Is the entire genera lacking eyes?

Paul Bollinger

 

[cacoseraph]

as i understand it (which is very possibly outdated or just plain wrong) there are two whole families of giant centipedes that totally lack eyes.

Scolopocryptopidae all lack eyes and have 23 legpairs.
afaik (which is really limited to USA centipedes and so easily could be incomplete) there is just one genus in this family... Scolopocryptops. there easily could be other genera in the family that exist in other parts of the world than the USA that i don't know about. a lot of the USA Scolopocryptops share that very long terminal leg look.

Cryptopidae all lack eyes and have 21 legpairs.
There are two USA genera that i know of. Cryptops essentially look like small Scolopocrptops, but with a different number of legs. Theatops have the swollen back legs and longer terminal body segment. My hope is that means Theatops are abundant or otherwise enhanced breeders as i have read that the last body segment or two are called the "sexual segments".

 

[peterbourbon]

Just to remind (in this case an ID-quiz isn't necessary, that's why I posted the keys):
http://www.scolopendra.info/keys/scolopendromoprha_keys.jpg

Other taxonomical guesses like length of terminal legs don't help (and are absolutely misleading). It's useless in genera taxonomy over all (in hobby it may be a nice indicator when you are out in an area that has only 3 or 4 Scolopendromorpha species at all). There is no taxonomical evidence in literature where taxonomists differentiate genera by length of terminal legs.

It's quite hard to see eyes (or no eyes) on those pics, but segments can be easily counted.

This one has been in hobby for awhile, but was "mixed up" with Dinocryptops miersii that has almost the same coloration (usually they grow a little bit bigger in the end, but that's dependent from locale). I've accidentally noticed it cause I decided to make macro photos of a speciman.

As I see it doesn't have a spiracle on 7th segment, hence it's obviously no Dinocryptops. But - "obviously" is a hard word. There are a few suspicions that development of spiracles can be inconsistent. As I remember correctly hybrid-specimens with poorly developed 7th spiracle could be seen.

Nevertheless this "spiracle-problem" doesn't seem to occur in Otostigmus and Rhysida. Maybe because Dinocryptops and Scolopocryptops are way more closeley related to each other, but I don't know.

Cheers
Turgut

 

[zonbonzovi]

The 1st picture makes the tergites appear to be transluscent...or is that just my eyes?