Contributions to Zoology, 73 (3) 207-252 (2004) SPB Academic Publishing bv, The Hague Morphological data, extant Myriapoda, and the myriapod stem-group Gregory+D. Edgecombe Australian Museum, 6 College Street, Sydney, NSW 2010, Australia, e-mail:
[email protected] Keywords: Myriapoda, phylogeny, stem-group, fossils Abstract Tagmosis; long-bodied fossils 222 Fossil candidates for the stem-group? 222 Conclusions 225 The status ofMyriapoda (whether mono-, para- or polyphyletic) Acknowledgments 225 and controversial, position of myriapods in the Arthropoda are References 225 .. fossils that an impediment to evaluating may be members of Appendix 1. Characters used in phylogenetic analysis 233 the myriapod stem-group. Parsimony analysis of319 characters Appendix 2. Characters optimised on cladogram in for extant arthropods provides a basis for defending myriapod Fig. 2 251 monophyly and identifying those morphological characters that are to taxon to The necessary assign a fossil the Myriapoda. the most of the allianceofhexapods and crustaceans need notrelegate myriapods “Perhaps perplexing arthropod taxa 1998: to the arthropod stem-group; the Mandibulatahypothesis accom- are the myriapods” (Budd, 136). modates Myriapoda and Tetraconata as sister taxa. No known pre-Silurianfossils have characters that convincingly place them in the Myriapoda or the myriapod stem-group. Because the Introduction strongest apomorphies ofMyriapoda are details ofthe mandible and tentorial endoskeleton,exceptional fossil preservation seems confound For necessary to recognise a stem-group myriapod. Myriapods palaeontologists. all that Cambrian Lagerstdtten like the Burgess Shale and Chengjiang have contributed to knowledge of basal Contents arthropod inter-relationships, they are notably si- lent on the matter of myriapod origins and affini- Introduction 207 ties.