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Photo#1066788
collembola-like but with 4 or 5 leg pairs - Polyxenus

collembola-like but with 4 or 5 leg pairs - Polyxenus
Austin, Travis County, Texas, USA
August 6, 2012
Size: 1 mm
Collected with a pyrethrin thermal fogger from an old growth live oak (Quercus virginiana fusiformis) canopy at Wild Basin Wilderness Preserve.

Habitat: Juniper-oak closed-canopy woodland, bottomland near bee creek, next to hackberry C. occidentalis.

Images of this individual: tag all
collembola-like but with 4 or 5 leg pairs - Polyxenus mystery class of arthropoda; collembola-like but with 4 or 5 leg pairs - Polyxenus mystery class of arthropoda; collembola-like but with 4 or 5 leg pairs - Polyxenus mystery class of arthropoda; collembola-like but with 4 or 5 leg pairs - Polyxenus mystery class of arthropoda; collembola-like but with 4 or 5 leg pairs - Polyxenus mystery class of arthropoda; collembola-like but with 4 or 5 leg pairs - Polyxenus mystery class of arthropoda; collembola-like but with 4 or 5 leg pairs - Polyxenus mystery class of arthropoda; collembola-like but with 4 or 5 leg pairs - Polyxenus mystery class of arthropoda; collembola-like but with 4 or 5 leg pairs - Polyxenus mystery class of arthropoda; collembola-like but with 4 or 5 leg pairs - Polyxenus mystery class of arthropoda; collembola-like but with 4 or 5 leg pairs - Polyxenus mystery class of arthropoda; collembola-like but with 4 or 5 leg pairs - Polyxenus mystery class of arthropoda; collembola-like but with 4 or 5 leg pairs - Polyxenus mystery class of arthropoda; collembola-like but with 4 or 5 leg pairs - Polyxenus mystery class of arthropoda; collembola-like but with 4 or 5 leg pairs - Polyxenus mystery class of arthropoda; collembola-like but with 4 or 5 leg pairs - Polyxenus mystery class of arthropoda; collembola-like but with 4 or 5 leg pairs - Polyxenus mystery class of arthropoda; collembola-like but with 4 or 5 leg pairs - Polyxenus mystery class of arthropoda; collembola-like but with 4 or 5 leg pairs - Polyxenus mystery class of arthropoda; collembola-like but with 4 or 5 leg pairs - Polyxenus mystery class of arthropoda; collembola-like but with 4 or 5 leg pairs - Polyxenus

Moved
Moved from Myriapods.

Definitely leaning toward Polyxenus...
...given the additional shots--as well as this from the Guide: "Quinn (2000) collected over 900 spmns (Polyxenus sp.) throughout his sampling period of March-August in Central Texas. They were fairly evenly present on live oak, cedar elm and juniper...."

Moved
Moved from Pauropodans.

Moved tentatively
Moved from ID Request.

I'm not sure what else these might be, but expert confirmation would be appreciated.

Thanks for the contribution, and welcome to BugGuide!

 
not pauropoda according to Borror et al.
The antennae are unbranched, they all have less than 9 pairs of legs, and the heads are not so small or covered by the tergal plate of the first body segment.

 
My understanding is that Pauropoda...
...start with three pairs of legs and add additional pairs with each molt.

I'm certainly not wedded to the ID; I'm just not sure what else they could be. Any suggestions?

 
edit: none with 3 legs, just 4 or 5
Using a higher-powered scope, I see that the one I thought had only three legs actually just had its caudal sections torn off. So they either have 4 or 5. It does appear that they gain a segment and leg pair with a molt (the 5-legged ones are longer). It appears to be an intermediate form between the myriapoda and hexapoda.

 
hairs
some of the hairs I see bear at least a slight resemblence to Polyxena; fwiw my initial guess was very young millepedes, not that I have any expertise in these areas though

 
hairs, gonads?
It does have hairs on most of the sections. All the hairs are somewhat plumose, with tiny secondary hairs coming off all along the main stem. There are bunches of hairs coming out of a single dark spot on either side of each body segment (many of these appear to have been rubbed off entirely).

Also, it's difficult to see from the pictures, but one of the larger specimens appears to have its aedeagus (? or some tube-like structure slightly longer and thicker than the legs) extruded through its gonopore (? the ventral of the two caudal bumps) so maybe it is mature? I'm not an expert at all in any of these areas either... I just need an order for my science project!

 
"bunches of hairs coming out of a single spot on either side"
see:

 
That also crossed my mind.
Moving to Myriapoda for the time being.

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