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Issue: Vol. 9 No. 4: August 2026
Type: Article
Published: 2026-08-28
DOI: 10.11646/palaeoentomology.9.4.7
Page range: 352-363
Abstract views: 218
PDF downloaded: 7

A new species of Cryptops Leach, 1814 (Chilopoda) from Myanmar amber provides evidence of morphological stasis spanning at least 99 million years

Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Application of Hebei Province; College of Life Sciences; Hebei University; Baoding 071002; China
Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Application of Hebei Province; College of Life Sciences; Hebei University; Baoding 071002; China
Myanmar amber Cretaceous Cryptops morphological stasis Chilopoda

Abstract

The genus Cryptops (Scolopendromorpha: Cryptopidae) is a cosmopolitan group. However, the fossil record of centipedes (Chilopoda) is notoriously patchy, and no fossil species of Cryptops has been formally named to date. Herein, we report a new species, Cryptops leachi sp. nov., recovered from mid-Cretaceous amber of northern Myanmar. The new species is assigned to the doriae group within the subgenus Cryptops. In addition to sharing some characters with its extant congeners, it can be distinguished from them by the combination of a single accessory spine on the pretarsus of the walking legs and a straight anterior margin of the forcipular coxosternite. The morphological continuity observed between the species and its extant congeners provides direct evidence for morphological stasis in this lineage over nearly 100 million years of evolution.

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