58 Rowland M. Shelley 



UCT — Zoology Department, University of Connecticut, Storrs. 

 UGA — Zoology Department, University of Georgia, Athens. 

 UL — Biology Department, University of Louisville, Kentucky. 

 UMMZ — University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, Ann Arbor. 

 UMO — Enns Entomological Museum, University of Missouri, Columbia. 

 VMNH — Virginia Museum of Natural History, Martinsville. 

 WAS — Private collection of W. A. Shear, Hampden-Sydney, Virginia. 

 WVDA — West Virginia Department of Agriculture, Charleston. 

 ZMH — Zoologisches Institut und Museum, Universtitat Hamburg, Germany. 

 ZMUC — Zoological Museum, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. 



LITERATURE REVIEW 



The literature of the Plutoniuminae is relatively orderly; difficulties 

 arose primarily from the tendency of early authors to inconsistently 

 cite species under more than one genus, and an erroneous observation 

 by Newport (1844) in his proposal of the oldest genus-group name, 

 Theatops. Newport mistook the unpigmented spots in the ocellar positions 

 as eyes, thus stating in the original and subsequent generic accounts 

 (Newport 1844, 1845, 1856) "ocelli distincti." However, he contradicted 

 this statement in the accompanying species accounts with the phrase, 

 "ocellis inconspicuis lateralibus." Confusion thus developed as to whether 

 Theatops and its type species, Cryptops postica Say, did or did not 

 possess ocelli, which was partly responsible for Wood's proposal (1862) 

 of the genus Opisthemega. Because the specimen of C. postica on 

 which Newport's proposal was based was sent to him at the NHM 

 by Say, no one else had seen it and could unequivocally resolve the 

 question of eyes. Underwood (1887) reviewed the confusion in footnote 

 8 and concluded that Theatops "may as well be consigned to oblivion" 

 and "at least it is not necessary to include it in future lists." These 

 statements concerned R. I. Pocock, who was at the NHM and in a 

 position to settle the issue by reexamining Say's specimen. He did 

 so; reported (Pocock 1888) that it lacked eyes and that Newport was 

 mistaken; and synonymized Opisthemega with Theatops. Pocock 's analy- 

 sis was accepted by subsequent authors, and future problems in the 

 Plutoniuminae chiefly involved misidentifications, a few ill-conceived 

 proposals of synonyms, and disagreement about the name and taxonomic 

 status of T. calif orniensis. 



The history of the Plutoniuminae begins with the description of 

 C. postica for a specimen from Georgia or east Florida by Say (1821), 

 a binomial subsequently cited by Newport (1844), Kohlrausch (1881), 

 and, in the masculine gender, by Lucas (1840) and Bollman (1893). 

 One of the first dozen or so centipedes to be described from North 



