8 
Rowland M. Shelley 
man 1950 a, 1962 6), and Peaks of Otter, Bedford County, Virginia 
(Hoffman 19626). 
S. australis Hoffman 19626; 6 mi (9.6 km) W Amicalola Falls, 
Dawson County, Georgia. Also known from White County, Georgia 
(Hoffman 19626). 
S. michauxi Hoffman 19626. Roan Mountain, Carver County, 
Tennessee. Also known from two other sites in Carter County and 
sites in Ashe, Avery, Buncombe-Transylvania, Macon, Mitchell, and 
Yancey counties, North Carolina (Hoffman 19626). 
TAXONOMIC CHARACTERS 
The taxonomically important features of Scytonotus chiefly 
involve aspects of the male gonopods, but as noted by Cook and 
Cook (1894), certain nonsexual features provide clues to a form’s 
identity and, in a few cases when combined with geography, a 
reliable determination. The genus is distinguished by two branches 
to the gonopod telopodite, the dentate paranota, and the flattened to 
lowly rounded, setiferous, dorsal tubercles that occur in relatively 
linear transverse rows. Species of Scytonotus are pink in color as is 
Bidentogon, a sympatric polydesmid genus occurring around San 
Francisco Bay (Shear 1972); it and trichopolydesmids also exhibit 
setose, tuberculate dorsums and can thus be confused with Scytonotus. 
However, their setae are stiffer and more noticeably clavate, and 
their tubercles are higher, more subconical, and more strongly el- 
evated above the dorsum and delineated from each other. Conse- 
quently, they differ from Scytonotus , which has a softer, “fuzzier” 
appearance, and adult trichopolydesmids, pallid in color, are also 
much smaller and narrower in proportion to their lengths. Though 
not sympatric with Scytonotus, Harpagonopus , occurring along the 
Pacific Coast of southern California and northern Baja California 
Norte, is also pink and dorsally setose and tuberculate (Loomis 1960, 
Shelley 1993), and at first glance appears to be Scytonotus. How- 
ever, the setae of its sole species, H. confluentus Loomis, also are 
stronger, stouter, and more clavate than those of S. simplex, the 
most proximate species of Scytonotus. In addition, the dorsal tu- 
bercles are more strongly demarcated from each other, as opposed 
to the lower, less pronounced ones of S. simplex. These attributes 
impart an almost velveteen appearance to specimens of Scytonotus, 
particularly juveniles, and with practice one can learn to distinguish 
this genus from phenotypically similar forms from California and 
Oregon with which it is often mixed in the same sample. 
Scytonotus can also be recognized by the tibial lobes on legs 
13-20/22 of most adult males and the reduced paranota on seg- 
