List of myriapods of Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka is a tropical island situated close to the southern tip of India. The invertebrate fauna is as large as it is common to other regions of the world. There are about 2 million species of arthropods found in the world, and still it is counting. So many new species are discover up to this time also. So it is very complicated and difficult to summarize the exact number of species found within a certain region.

The following list is about Centipedes and Millipedes found in Sri Lanka.

Centipede

Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Myriapoda
Class: Chilopoda

Centipedes are arthropods belonging to the class Chilopoda of the subphylum Myriapoda. They are elongated metameric creatures with one pair of legs per body segment, where legs ranging from 30 to 354. They always have an odd number of pairs of legs.^[1]^[2]^[3] A pair of venom claws or forcipules formed from a modified first appendage, which indicated that they are predominantly carnivorous.^[4]^: 168

About 8,000 species of centipedes are thought to exist,^[5] of which 3,000 have been described.

The following list provide the centipedes currently identified in Sri Lanka. The first known study on centipedes are came from Newport on 1845. Then many more overseas biologists and naturalists did many studies on centipedes. However, much recent work and the first work by a local biologist was done by Duminda Dissanayake of Rajarata University of Sri Lanka. According to his checklist, there are 19 species from 4 orders and 6 families are known from Sri Lanka.^[6]

Endemic species are denoted as E.

Order: Geophilomorpha - Soil centipedes

Family: Mecistocephalidae

Family: Oryidae

Orphnaeus brevilabiatus

Order: Lithobiomorpha - Stone centipedes

Family: Lithobiidae

Order: Scolopendromorpha - Bark centipedes

Family: Scolopendridae

Order: Scutigeromorpha - Common house centipedes

Family: Scutigeridae

Thereuopodina tenuicornis

Family: Scutigerinidae

Scutigerina weberi

Millipede

Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Myriapoda
Class: Diplopoda

Millipedes are arthropods in the class Diplopoda, which is characterised by having two pairs of jointed legs on most body segments. Most millipedes have very elongated cylindrical or flattened bodies with more than 20 segments, while pill millipedes are shorter and can roll into a ball. The average number of legs are about 500 or so, but rarely about 750. Approximately 12,000 species classified into sixteen orders and around 140 families, making Diplopoda the largest class of myriapods.

In 1865, Humbert is the first person to study Sri Lankan millipede fauna, with 26 species, including 19 new species. In 1892, Pocock discovered 10 more new species of millipedes from many localities. With many gradual taxonomic revisions by Carl, Demange, Hoffman and endemic millipede fauna by Mauriès, a total of 104 millipede species belonging to 44 genera, 18 families and nine orders have been documented. 82 species are endemic to Sri Lanka.^[7]