Relation of Myriopods to Insects.—The Myriopoda are the nearest allies of the insects. They have a distinct head, with one pair of antennæ. The eyes are simple, with the exception of a single genus (Cermatia), in which they are aggregated or compound. The trunk or body behind the head is, as a rule, long and slender, and composed of a large but variable number of segments, of equal size and shape, bearing jointed legs, which invariably end in a single claw.
The mouth-parts of the myriopods are so different in shape and general function from those of insects, that this character, together with the equally segmented nature of the portion of the body behind the head (the trunk), forbids our merging them, as some have been inclined to do, with the insects. There are two sub-classes of myriopods, differing in such important respects that by Pocock[[1]] and by Kingsley they are regarded as independent classes, each equivalent to the insects.
Of these the most primitive are the Diplopoda (Chilognatha), represented by the galley-worms (Julus, etc.).
Fig. 5.—Mandible of Julus: l, lacinia; g, galea; p, dens mandibularis; ma, “mala”; lt, lamina tritoria; st, stipes; c, cardo; m, muscle.—After Latzel.
In the typical Diplopoda the head consists of three segments, a preoral or antennal, and two postoral, there being two pairs of jaw-like appendages, which, though in a broad morphological sense homologues of the mandibles and first maxillæ of insects, are quite unlike them in details.
Fig. 6.—Under lip or deutomala of Scoterpes copei: hyp, hypostoma or mentum; lam. lab, lamina labialis; stip. e, stipes exterior; with the malella exterior (mal. e) and malella interior (mal. i); the stipes interior, with the malulella; and the labiella (hypopharynx of Vom Rath) with its stilus (stil.).
As we have previously stated,[[2]] the so-called “mandibles” of diplopods are entirely different from those of insects, since they appear to be 2– or 3–jointed, the terminal joint being 2–lobed, thus resembling the maxillæ rather than the mandibles of insects, which consist of but a single piece or joint, probably the homologue of the galea or molar joint of the diplopod protomala. The mandible of the Julidæ (Fig. 5, Julus molybdinus), Lysiopetalidæ, and Polydesmidæ consists of three joints; viz. a basal piece or cardo, a stipes, and the mala mandibularis, which supports two lobes analogous to the galea and lacinia of the maxilla of an insect. There is an approach, as we shall see, in the mandible of Copris, to that of the Julidæ, but in insects in general the lacinia is wanting, and the jaw consists of but a single piece.
The deutomalæ (gnathochilarium), or second pair of diplopod jaws, are analogous to the labium or second maxillæ of insects, forming a flattened, plate-like under-lip, constituting the floor of the mouth (Fig. 6). This pair of appendages needs farther study, especially in the late embryo, before it can be fully understood. So far as known, judging by Metschnikoff’s work on the embryology of the diplopods, these myriopods seem to have in the embryo but two pairs of post-antennal mouth-parts, which he designated as the “mandibles” and “labium.” Meinert, however, regards as a third pair of mouth-parts or “labium” what in our Fig. 7 is called the internal stipes (stip. i.), behind which is a triangular plate, lamina labialis (lam. lab), which he regards as the sternite of the same segment.