i5K: Silvestri's Northern Forcepstail

Silvestri's Northern Forcepstail (Catajapyx aquilonaris)

Silvestri's Northern Forcepstail Photo by Nikola Szucsich Source: The Bonn group, Oliver Niehuis Links BCM-HGSC data

Researchers involved:
Size (or size of nearest relative): 304 MBp

Keywords (and why important): (systematics)

Representative of Diplura: the japygid Catajapyx aquilonaris is a blind predator of the soil. Like Protura (Acerentomon maius) and Collembola (Sminthurus viridis), Diplura lack wings, mirroring the wingless insect ancestor. Like in all primarily wingless hexapods, sperms are not transferred directly during copulation. Males rather deposit a spermatophore on the ground and females subsequently take the spermatophore up.

Diplura are critical for understanding the evolutionary origin of Hexapoda (e.g., terrestrialization), the evolutionary origin of wings (ancestral condition in Diplura), and the evolution of direct sperm transfer (ancestral condition in Diplura).