Abstract
A new family, Electrocambalidae fam. nov. of the suborder Cambalidea is described from Cretaceous Burmese amber based on two new genera, Electrocambala gen. nov. and Kachincambala gen. nov. with four new species, Electrocambala ornata gen. et sp. nov., E. cretacea gen. et sp. nov., Kachincambala muelleri gen. et sp. nov. and K. distorta gen. et sp. nov. The specimens are described combining classical light microscopy with drawings and photography, and modern micro-computed tomography (μCT). Morphological characters otherwise obscured are examined and visualized by creating volume renderings and 3D-segmentations from μCT data. Electrocambalidae fam. nov. is characterized by the following character combination: (1) a forward shift of leg pair 3, resulting in an apparently legless 3rd body ring, (2) presence of metazonital setae, and (3) extensive pilosity on the head. Although some of these characters are shared with other Juliformia they are unique in this combination. The described fossils are the oldest and first Mesozoic Spirostreptida and Cambalidea known and ca 70 million years older than previous records of the group.
Highlights
The specimens are identified as members of the superorder Juliformia based on the following characters: totally fused body rings; leg pairs 8 and 9 modified to gonopods; collum enlarged
The family Electrocambalidae fam. nov. is distinct from all Cambalidea and Spirostreptidea by the position of leg pair 3
Leg pair 1 and 2 both appear to be situated on the collum and leg pairs 3 is shifted to body ring 2 in the Electrocambalidae fam. nov., resulting in an apparently legless third body ring, in addition to the seemingly legless fourth body ring observable in all Spirostreptida
Summary
Millipedes (Diplopoda Gervais, 1844), which comprise more than 11 000 described extant species (Sierwald & Bond 2007; Brewer et al 2012; Enghoff et al 2015), were among the first fully terrestrial animals (Selden & Read 2007; Shear & Edgecombe 2010; Kenrick et al 2012), and are as detritivores (Crawford 1992; Cárcamo et al 2000) and soil-forming organisms (Crossley 1977) essential for terrestrial ecosystems – a role they have played probably unchanged since the Paleozoic (Shear & Kukalová-PeckMORITZ L. & WESENER T., Electrocambalidae, a new millipede family from Cretaceous amber1990). The oldest known and first Mesozoic fossils of various millipede taxa were found trapped in Burmese amber, like those of the orders Callipodida Pocock, 1894 (Stoev et al 2019), Platydesmida de Saussure, 1860 (Moritz & Wesener 2019), Siphoniulida Pocock, 1894 (Liu et al 2017) and Siphonophorida Newport, 1844 (Jiang et al 2019). A great diversity of undescribed millipedes has been recorded from Burmese amber, among which are several millipedes belonging to the spirostreptidan taxon Cambalidea Cook, 1895 (Wesener & Moritz 2018)
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