Part of a series of articles titled The Midden - Great Basin National Park: Vol. 18, No. 2, Winter 2018.
Article • The Midden - Great Basin National Park: Vol. 18, No. 2, Winter 2018
Three New Records of Stone Centipedes in Nevada
This article was originally published in The Midden – Great Basin National Park: Vol. 18, No. 2, Winter 2018.

Worldwide, there are roughly 3,000 described species of centipedes; about 20% of these are recorded in the United States (Mercurio 2010). However, the majority of centipedes are often overlooked, partly due to their small size and uncharismatic appearance.
Lithobiomorpha, commonly known as stone centipedes, are arguably one of the least studied of the common ground-dwelling arthropods in North America. Virtually no research on the taxonomy and distribution of stone centipedes from the Western United States has been conducted since the passing of myriapologist Ralph Vary Chamberlin in 1967. This is unfortunate, considering that centipedes play important roles in ecosystems.

Herein, I report three new records of stone centipedes in Nevada: Bothropolys permundus (Chamberlin, 1902), Lophobius loganus (Chamberlin, 1925), and Zygethobius dolichopus (Chamberlin, 1902). Centipedes were hand collected from leaf litter and under stones and logs along Baker Creek and Lehman Creek on June 13, 2018 during the Beetle BioBlitz at Great Basin National Park. The majority of the collected centipedes (24 individuals; 60% of total) were L. loganus. All specimens have been deposited at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County in California.

References:
Mercurio, R.J. 2010. An annotated catalog of the centipedes (Chilopoda) from the United States of America, Canada and Greenland (1758–2008). XLibris Corporation, Bloomington, IN, 560 pp.
Schaefer, M. 1990. The soil fauna of a beech forest on limestone: Trophic structure and energy budget. Oecologia 82(1): 128-136.
Last updated: February 21, 2024