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Issue: Vol. 9 No. 3: June 2026
Type: Article
Published: 2026-06-29
DOI: 10.11646/palaeoentomology.9.3.6
Page range: 228-242
Abstract views: 63
PDF downloaded: 42

The centipede Cryptops from Baltic amber (Chilopoda: Scolopendromorpha): phylogenetic analysis using combined morphological and molecular data

Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1; ENSL; UMR CNRS 5276 LGLTPE; F-69622; Villeurbanne; France
The Natural History Museum; Cromwell Road; London SW7 5BD; United Kingdom
Museum of Comparative Zoology; Department of Organismic & Evolutionary Biology; Harvard University; 26 Oxford Street; Cambridge; Massachusetts 02138; USA
Scolopendromorpha Cryptopidae Baltic amber Earliest Eocene Chilopoda

Abstract

Two specimens of scolopendromorph centipedes from Eocene Baltic amber provide a confidently documented fossil record of the blind family Cryptopidae. The fossil material, illustrated via light microscopy and microcomputed tomography, is assigned to the extant genus Cryptops Leach, 1814, based on diagnostic morphological characters such as the absence of eyes, 21 leg-bearing segments with strongly delimited pre- and metatergites, oblique sutures and lateral crescentic sulci on the tergites, and robust, spiniform setae on the ultimate legs. A distinctive pattern of sutures on the first trunk tergite supports conspecificity of the fossil material and a unique combination of characters allows distinction from extant species. Phylogenetic analysis of a dataset for blind Scolopendromorpha incorporates 61 morphological characters for 41 species (37 extant, four extinct) with sequence data for two nuclear ribosomal and two mitochondrial loci for the extant species. The total-evidence maximum likelihood tree places the fossils within total-group Cryptops in a framework of strongly supported extant clades. The fossils constrain a minimum divergence date for the genus to the late Eocene (Priabonian) according to the age of Baltic amber, although geographic structure within extant clades of Cryptops and previous molecular estimates suggest this is a conservative minimum. The discovery supplements the sparse Cenozoic fossil record for Scolopendromorpha and illustrates an application of amber inclusions as temporal calibration points in centipede phylogeny.

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