Chilopoda

Centipedes are predatory arthropods belonging to the class Chilopoda of the subphylum Myriapoda, an arthropod group which includes millipedes and other multi-legged animals. Centipedes are elongated segmented (metameric) animals with one pair of legs per body segment. All centipedes are venomous and can inflict painful stings, injecting their venom through pincer-like appendages known as forcipules or toxicognaths, which are actually modified legs instead of fangs. Despite the name, no species of centipede has exactly 100 legs; the number of pairs of legs is an odd number that ranges from 15 pairs to 191 pairs. Less common names include "forty-legs" and "hundred-legs".

Chilopoda

Thomas Brown AfroBrazilian Warut Siriwut, Gregory D. Edgecombe, Chirasak Sutcharit, Piyoros Tongkerd, Somsak Panha Ka… · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
centipedePBDB
Sits inside
MyriapodaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda

Time the record covers

At least 414 million years on record.

The record covers at least 419.62 Mya to 5.333 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 422.7 Mya to 2.58 Mya.

Silurian — about 2 of 59 occurrencesDevonian — about 8 of 59 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 2 of 59 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 2 of 59 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 0 of 59 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 59 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 59 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 59 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 59 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 1 of 59 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 3 of 59 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 15 of 59 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 59 occurrencesEocene — about 17 of 59 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 59 occurrencesMiocene — about 7 of 59 occurrencesPliocene — about 2 of 59 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 59 occurrences431–417 Mya — about 2 occurrences417–402 Mya — about 3 occurrences388–374 Mya — about 5 occurrences316–302 Mya — about 2 occurrences287–273 Mya — about 1 occurrence273–259 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences259–244 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences158–144 Mya — about 1 occurrence129–115 Mya — about 2 occurrences115–101 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences101–86 Mya — about 15 occurrences43–29 Mya — about 17 occurrences29–14 Mya — about 7 occurrences14–0 Mya — about 2 occurrences419.62 Mya5.333 Mya431 Mya0 Mya

59 occurrences of Chilopoda on record, most of them in the Eocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

59 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

11 formations

Panther Mountain — 42.43°N, 74.43°WDryden Flags — 57.34°N, 2.85°WDryden Flags — 57.34°N, 2.84°WCrato — 7.13°S, 39.70°WDownton Castle Sandstone — 51.37°N, 2.73°WCarbondale — 41.34°N, 88.39°WMakapansgat — 24.20°S, 28.95°EEl Mamey — 19.45°N, 70.70°WOnyx Marble — 35.10°N, 112.59°WNusplingen Limestone — 48.13°N, 8.88°EPoldarsa — 60.61°N, 45.62°EKoshelevka — 57.03°N, 57.72°E

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The named rock units Chilopoda has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 38 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Chilopoda and its relatives

Eocene

Where Chilopoda and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

2,246 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 34 sites for Chilopoda, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

27 references

Each of the 59 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 15 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Chilopoda

Credit
Thomas Brown AfroBrazilian Warut Siriwut, Gregory D. Edgecombe, Chirasak Sutcharit, Piyoros Tongkerd, Somsak Panha Ka…
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itMyriapoda through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Latreille 1817)