A LARGE MYRIACANTHERPESTID ARCHIPOLYPOD FROM KENTUCKY AND ITS DEFENSIVE MECHANISMS

A 6.5-cm-long specimen of a euphoberiidan millipede is preserved in a gray shale belonging to the Middle Pennsylvanian Tradewater Formation of Kentucky. The specimen was collected by Bill DiMichele from above the Elm Lick coal at the Longview Mine in the western part of the state. The specimen consists of 6 adjacent diplosegments preserved in dorsal view. The diplosegments have forked lateral spines, prominent, curved anterior spinelets, and, judged by its stout paramedian-spine bases, had prominent parmedian spines. (The spines are clearly broken off from the bases.) The species has bosses near the base of the anterior spinelets that have openings for ozopores. These appear to be present on all segments. The species is also characterized by nodosity on the posterolateral side of the metazonites.

The characters seen agree with those seen in the type specimen of Myriacantherpestes clarkorum (Burke, 1973). That specimen was collected from a siltstone overlying the Lower Freeport coal in Monongalia County, West Virginia. Although it originally was described as having paramedian spines reduced to nodes, reexamination of the counterpart of the specimen shows that it had prominent paramedian spines. Initial preparation of the specimen using air abrasive seems to have dulled some of the surface features of that otherwise spectacularly preserved specimen, but it also has nodes that would have born ozopores. Thus these large archipolypods had two complementary sets of defensive mechanisms.