Blind scolopendrid centipedes of the genus Cormocephalus from subterranean habitats in Western Australia (Myriapoda: Scolopendromorpha: Scolopendridae)

Abstract

Only a single blind species is known in the centipede family Scolopendridae, representing the monotypic genus Tonkinodentus Schileyko, 1992, from Vietnam. All of more than 400 other species have four ocelli on each side of the cephalic plate. A complex of three new blind species of the genus Cormocephalus Newport, 1844, is described from the subterranean fauna of the central Pilbara region of Western Australia. Phylogenies based on sequence data for the barcode region of COI and a concatenated matrix that also includes 12S rRNA, 28S rRNA and ITS2 unite the blind Pilbara species as a monophyletic group, albeit with moderate bootstrap support, informally named the C. sagmus species group. Cormocephalus sagmus, C. pyropygus and C. delta spp. nov. supplement 17 epigean congeners previously described from Australia. The new species are all morphologically similar, but can be distinguished using the shape and spinulation of the ultimate leg prefemur. Two additional genetically distinct lineages were recovered that are not described, owing to the specimens being immature or lacking diagnostic morphological characters. The subterranean radiation in the Pilbara is more closely related to species from forests in the south-west of Western Australia than to congeners from the arid zone. http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:6F67FD31-A373-4DC5-A5FD-374D32DEE02C