Parental Care in Dicellophilus carniolensis (C. L. Koch, 1847): New Behavioural Evidence with Implications for the Higher Phylogeny of Centipedes (Chilopoda)

Abstract

Parental care in Dicellophilus carniolensis (Chilopoda Geophilomorpha Mecistocephalidae) is described for the first time: the female coils around the brood with the dorsal surface outwards, as do the females of other centipede orders (Craterostigmomorpha and Scolopendromorpha) but at variance with the remaining geophilomorphs, whose brooding females remain coiled with the ventral surface outwards. The available information on this behaviour in centipedes is reviewed and interpreted in the context of the phylogeny of the group, based on morphological and molecular characters, and also in relation to the evolution of the sternal glands, a feature common to most Geophilomorpha. The evolutionary transition from brooding female with dorsal side outwards (plesiomorphic state) to brooding female with ventral side outwards (apomorphic state) was most likely associated with the evolution of defensive glands on the ventral surface of the female. The behaviour observed in D. carniolensis is probably common to the whole of Mecistocephalidae, thus supporting the basal position of this clade within the Geophilomorpha.