Why are there so few “far southern” myriapods?

Abstract

There are no extant Antarctic myriapods. The “far southern” islands south of latitude 45° S together with the isolated (south Atlantic) Tristan da Cunha, Gough, (south Indian) St Paul, Amsterdam and (south Pacific) Chatham islands (at 37 to 44° S), harbour only 33 native, introduced and partly identified taxa, including 17 Chilopoda, 11 Diplopoda, two Pauropoda and four Symphyla. The myriapods confined to the extreme edge of the Southern Ocean are entirely derived from pre-glacial Tertiary relicts or post-glacial anthropogenic introductions and show no evidence of co-occurring sibling taxa. This unusual distribution pattern provides a useful “no dispersal/no speciation” benchmark that can be applied to other far-southern non-marine invertebrates where the distinction between pre-glacial and post-glacial endemic taxa is not so clearly defined.