Geophilidae

Langor, David W. & Langor, Stephen D., 2022, The biota of Canada: checklist of the centipedes of Canada (Myriapoda: Chilopoda), The Canadian Entomologist (e 8) 154 (1), pp. 1-12 : 6-7

Family Geophilidae

Arctogeophilus glacialis (Attems) . This Nearctic species was previously reported from Alaska but not from Canada ( Kevan 1983; Behan-Pelletier 1993). More than 20 specimens of this species, determined by Ralph Crabill, were recently discovered in the Canadian National Collection of Insects, Arachnids, and Nematodes and were collected at Reindeer Station, Northwest Territories by J.R. Vockeroth on 25 June 1948 (accession number CNC 627306). This is a new Canadian record.

Arctogeophilus insularis Attems. This Nearctic species was described from British Columbia, with the type locality published as “Vancouver, Manaimo” (sic; Attems 1947), which is interpreted as Vancouver Island , Nanaimo. This record was missed in earlier Canadian checklists.

Arenophilus bipuncticeps (Wood) . Brodie and White (1883) first recorded this native species from undisclosed localities in Canada but misspelled the specific name as “ bipunctatus ”. Peters (1954) reported the species from Ontario, and Crabill (1952) reported it from Nova Scotia. It is likely that this widely distributed species is also present in Québec and New Brunswick.

Cheiletha kincaidi Chamberlin. This species was collected from East Bunsby Island, British Columbia in August 1955 and was identified by Ralph Chamberlin in 1956 ( Carl and Guiguet 1956), which was too late to include the record in Chamberlin’ s description of the species in 1955. This Canadian record was overlooked by all subsequent authors and was just recently rediscovered. The repository of the material is unknown.

Geophilus carpophagus Leach. Brodie and White (1883) reported this adventive species from undisclosed localities in Canada. There is no other report of this species from North America. As the material upon which this record is based has not yet been located, this record should be considered questionable.

Geophilus electricus (Linnaeus) . In North America, this adventive species is reported only from St. John’ s, Newfoundland and Labrador ( Palmén 1954), where two specimens were found in 1949. The species is considered established there .

Geophilus flavus (De Geer) . This adventive species was previously recorded from Canada as the synonym Necrophloeophagus longicornis Leach , with localities in Ontario ( Crabill 1952) and four widely separated localities in Newfoundland ( Palmén 1954).

Geophilus glyptus (Chamberlin) . This species was collected from East Bunsby Island , British Columbia in August 1955 and was identified by Ralph Chamberlin in 1956 ( Carl and Guiguet 1956), which was too late to include the record in Chamberlin’ s description of the species in 1955. This Canadian record was overlooked by all subsequent authors and was just recently rediscovered. The repository of the material is unknown; however, it is not present in the Royal British Columbia Museum (Victoria) or the University of British Columbia (Vancouver) holdings of Chilopoda .

Geophilus proximus Koch. This adventive species is recorded only from Ontario in Canada ( Crabill 1958).

Geophilus terraenovae Palmén. This species was described from Newfoundland , where it is widespread, and is also found in southern Labrador and on the French island of Miquelon near the southern coast of Newfoundland ( Palmén 1954). The holotype and paratypes represent the only known determined material.

Geophilus vittatus (Rafinesque) . This Nearctic species is relatively widely distributed in the United States of America ( Mercurio 2010), but in Canada, it is known only from Ontario (reported as the synonym Geophilus rubens Say ; Chamberlin 1920) and Québec (as the synonym Geophilus deducens Chamberlin ; Matthewman and Pielou 1971).

Pachymerium ferrugineum (Koch) . This species may be of Holarctic or of Palaearctic origin and inadvertently introduced to North America. It has an unusual distribution in North America, including in the Yukon and Alaska and in the eastern half of the United States of America, south to Texas and Florida. In Canada, Kevan (1979) reported it as “subarctic”, but it was not included in the revised checklist provided by Kevan (1983). Behan-Pelletier (1993) reports it from the Yukon Territory, but the source of this record is unknown.

Taiyuna undetermined species. Kevan (1979) recorded T. opita (Chamberlin) from British Columbia, which seems to be a disjunct distribution as the only other records of this species are from the states of Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, United States of America. Interestingly, Kevan (1983) does not list this species from Canada, but he speculates that the Taiyuna specimens from British Columbia belong to T. occidentalis (Meinert) . The repository for the British Columbia specimens of this genus is unknown. Until the specimens can be located and studied, it is best to record this as Taiyuna sp.