Paedomorphosis in the scolopendrid centipede genus Asanada (Chilopoda: Scolopendromorpha) explains incongruence...

The morphological characters of members of the scolopendrid genus Asanada Meinert, 1886 are reviewed. A number of these characters are only seen in embryonic or early adolescent stadia in other scolopendrids. This suggests that the centipedes of this genus are paedomorphic. Support for this thesis is provided by the very rare appearance (in only three specimens) of some otherwise "adult" characters. This paedomorphosis, in all probability neoteny, may account for the recently described incongruence between morphological and molecular data with respect to the position of the genus seen in cladistic analyses.