WEST INDIAN CENTIPEDES — CRABILL 169 



supposing that this tmihc could not have begun long before those 

 times. This dispersal route extended at each end perhaps best 

 accounts for the presence in Africa, Asia, and South America of a 

 number of the same or of evidently closely related scutigeromorph 

 and possibly scolopendromorph genera (or suprageneric groups). 

 Successful rafting, especially by Scutigeromorph a and probably also 

 by Scolopendromorpha , is probably unlikely since these active, 

 foraging surface-dwellers seem poorly adapted for prolonged exposure 

 on the confines of floating debris. It is known that Scutigera coleoptrata 

 succumbs rather quickly in salt water. 



The idea of a direct land connection, at least since Cretaceous 

 times, is sciiously challenged today by geological evidence, though 

 a land connection between the southern continents during and before 

 the Triassic cannot at present be discounted entirely (Darlington, 

 1957, chap. 10). In any event I suspect that these southern faunal 

 similarities can be better explained on other grounds, namely by 

 artificial introduction, ancient dispersal on land, rafting, and wind 

 transport (see Darlington, 1957, pp. 14-20). 



Rafting is of particular interest from the standpoint of the schend.y- 

 lids described here, as we shall see. It used to be said of myriapods 

 and amphibians that they could not tolerate salt water, but we know 

 today that a number of centipedes, notably geophilid and schendylid 

 Geophilomorpha, are able to withstand prolonged submersion. There 

 are some genera whose members are reportedly quite normally en- 

 countered on beaches whore they inhabit the sand, live in debris, or 

 conceal themselves in mud or under wet stones; some of them have 

 been found below the high tide mark. As a matter of fact, three of 

 the present species, Caritohallex minyrrhopus, Balloph^'lus riveroi, and 

 Schendylurm virgingordae, were collected in West Indian beach drift, 

 and I have in my possession about a dozen specimens of Pectiniunguis 

 (again, Schendylidae) that were discovered in seaweed on the beach 

 of a Florida Key. 



Cloudsley-Thompson (1948, pp. 149-152) comments on a number 

 of littoral centipedes, some of which are evidently true halophiles. 

 The cases of Hydroschendyla suhmarina (Grube), a schendylid, and 

 Strigamia (formerly Scolioplanes) maritima (Leach) are especially 

 instructive. S. suhmarina, known from the littoral of Scandanavia, 

 France, England, the Mediterranean, and Bermuda, has in Bermuda 

 been found living among mud and rocks and in honeycombed lime- 

 stone below the mean high tide mark. Apparently this species sub- 

 sists upon a variety of small marine animals including polychaete 

 annelids. H. maritima, widespread on Eiu-opean coasts, has been 

 found to be able to withstand as many as 30 hours of total submersion 

 in sea water and from 70 to 80 hours in fresh water. Cloudsley- 



