Burmanopetalum

Burmanopetalum is an extinct genus of millipede containing the single species Burmanopetalum inexpectatum from the Cretaceous of Myanmar. It is a member of the order Callipodida and is the only member of the suborder Burmanopetalidea and family Burmanopetalidae.

Burmanopetalum
Temporal range: Earliest Cenomanian, 99 Ma
↓
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Diplopoda
Order: Callipodida
Suborder: †Burmanopetalidea
Family: †Burmanopetalidae
Genus: †Burmanopetalum
Species:
†B. inexpectatum
Binomial name
†Burmanopetalum inexpectatum
Stoev, Moritz and Wesener, 2019

Description

The holotype adult female specimen is just over 8 millimetres long, which is extremely small for the order, it is distinguished by the presence of 35 cylindrical body rings with free sternites and fused tergites, among other characters.[1]

Discovery

The specimen was discovered in Burmese amber, a productive amber deposit in Kachin State, which has been dated to earliest Cenomanian, or approximately 99 million years old. As of the time of publication, it is the only known callipodid in the Burmese amber out of 529 known millipede specimens, most of which belong to extant families and even genera.

References
  1. Stoev, Pavel; Moritz, Leif; Wesener, Thomas (2019-02-05). "Dwarfs under dinosaur legs: a new millipede of the order Callipodida (Diplopoda) from Cretaceous amber of Burma". ZooKeys. 841: 79–96. doi:10.3897/zookeys.841.34991. ISSN 1313-2970. PMC 6529722. PMID 31148918.
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