Symphylans, also known as Garden Centipedes or Glasshouse Symphylans, are soil-dwelling arthropods of the Class Symphyla in the Subphylum Myriapoda. Symphylans resemble centipedes, but are smaller and translucent. They can move rapidly through the pores between soil particles, and typically are found from the surface down to a depth of about 50 cm. They consume decaying vegetation, but can do considerable harm in an agricultural setting by consuming seeds, roots, and root hairs in cultivated soil.
Juveniles have six pairs of legs, but, over a lifetime of several years, add an additional pair at each molt so that the adult instar has twelve pairs of legs. Lacking eyes, their long antennae serve as sense organs. About 160 species are known worldwide.
The resemblance between the Chilopoda and the Diplopoda is principally superficial and due to the elongation and vermiform shape of the body, which in.
As the basis for this classification was taken,the position of the generative orifices which open in the Opisthogonea at the posterior end and in the Prosogonea near the anterior end of the body.
Structure of the Chilopoda.The exoskeletal elements of a typical somite consist of a dorsal plate or tergum, a ventral plate or sternum, a lateral or pleural membrane, often strengthened with chitinous sclerites, and a pair of appendages.
Provisional closure in insects was summarised by Johannsen and Butt (1941:56-57).
The median apical lobes of the gnathochilarium of pauropods arise from the mandibular segment (Tiegs, 1947; Snodgrass, 1952), and are considered homologous with superlinguae.
Chilopoda (except Geophilomorpha) resemble Diplopoda and Symphyla in having the gnathal lobe of the mandible musculated by a large flexor that arises on the dorsal surface of the cranium (Snodgrass, 1950, 1952).
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