Spirostreptida

{{Automatic taxobox

| image = Orthoporus spp New Mexico.jpg

| image_alt =

| image_caption = Orthoporus sp. (Spirostreptidae) from North America

| taxon = Spirostreptida

| fossil_range = {{fossilrange|Cenomanian|Present}}

| authority = Brandt, 1833

| subdivision_ranks = Families

| subdivision = 10: see text.

}}

Spirostreptida is an order of long, cylindrical millipedes. There are approximately 1000 described species,{{cite journal|last=Shear|first=W.|title=Class Diplopoda de Blainville in Gervais, 1844. In: Zhang, Z.-Q. (Ed.) Animal biodiversity: An outline of higher-level classification and survey of taxonomic richness|journal=Zootaxa|year=2011|volume=3148|pages=159–164|url=http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/2011/f/zt03148p164.pdf|ref=Shear2011}} making Spirostreptida the third largest order of millipedes after Polydesmida and Chordeumatida.

Description

Spirostreptida are generally large, long and cylindrical, with 30 to 90 body rings. Eyes are present in most.{{cite web|title=Diagnostic features of Millipede Orders|url=http://fieldmuseum.org/sites/default/files/Identification_Table_1.pdf|work=Milli-PEET Identification Tables|publisher=The Field Museum, Chicago|access-date=25 October 2013}} This order contains the longest millipedes known: the giant African millipedes of the genus Archispirostreptus that may exceed {{convert|30|cm}}.

Distribution

Spirostreptida contains mainly tropical species, and occurs in Africa, Southern Asia to Japan, Australia, and the Western Hemisphere from the United States to Argentina.{{cite journal|last=Shelley|first=Rowland M.|title=Centipedes and Millipedes with Emphasis on North American Fauna|journal=The Kansas School Naturalist|year=1999|volume=45|issue=3|pages=1–16|url=http://www.emporia.edu/ksn/v45n3-march1999/}}

Evolutionary history

Like most millipede groups, they have a fragmentary fossil record. The oldest record of the group is the extinct family Electrocambalidae, which is known from the Burmese amber of Myanmar, dating to the Cenomanian stage of the Late Cretaceous around 99 million years ago, which belongs to the suborder Cambalidea. The only other fossil records of the group are Protosilvestria from the Oligocene of France, which belongs to either Cambalidae or Cambalopsidae, and an undescribed species of Epinannolene (Pseudonannolenidae) from the Miocene aged Dominican amber.{{Cite journal|last=Moritz|first=Leif|last2=Wesener|first2=Thomas|date=2021-06-17|title=Electrocambalidae fam. nov., a new family of Cambalidea from Cretaceous Burmese amber (Diplopoda, Spirostreptida)|url=http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/files/60869/1397-Article-Text-6077-1-10-20210617.pdf|journal=European Journal of Taxonomy|volume=755|pages=22–46|doi=10.5852/ejt.2021.755.1397|issn=2118-9773|doi-access=free}}