Pedipalpida: India
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Pedipalpida
Introduction
These strange animals called 'The Whip-Scorpions', are found in the Oriental Region from India and Sri Lanka to the Fiji Islands and New Herbrides, and extend northwards into China and Southern Japan; Neotropical Region from Brazil northwards into the Southern States of North America. They are absent from Africa, Madagascar, Australia and New Zealand. In their general fonns, they bear some resemblances to scorpions; but they can be easily distinguished from scorpions by the form of the pedipalps, of the first pair of legs-and of post abdomen.
These arachnids are of moderate or large size, none of them are minute like Microthelyphonida. Cephalothorax is longer than wide, the carapace sometimes segmented posteriorly; the ventral surface narrow and furnished with two or three sternal plates. The frrst pair of legs are elongated, slender and antenniform, and are modified into feelers. Each frrst leg consists of six segments: coxa, trochanter,femur, patella, tibia and tarsus; the tarsus is divided into many segments, the last of which has a rounded tip instead of claws. The rest of legs ambulatory in function, and consists of 7 segments named as above with the addition of a protarsus which precedes the three-jointed tarsus; the tarsus bearing three claws; coxae of second and third legs not widely separated in the middle line of stenlal area. The abdomen is segmented and consists of 12 somites, represented by tergal and sternal plates. The respiratory organs are two pairs of book-lungs; they open on the posterior edge of the second and third abdominal segments.
The Whip-scorpions are of both tailed and tailless forms. In tailed whip-scorpions, the last three abdominal somites are annuliform or cylindrical, forming a movable stalk for the postanal skeletal piece, which consists of a single segment of many jointed caudal flagellum or filament. In the family Schizomidae, this caudal appendage is short, consists of 1-3 segments. The tailless whip-scorpions do not possess any caudal appendage. Pocock (1900) revised this group of arachnids in his' Fauna of British India (Arachnida), where it was divided into two separate orders-Uropygi and Amblypygi. Indian forms of Uropygi represented_by 6 genera and 19 species out of 2 families, where Amblypygi contains 4 genera and 6 species in 2 families. But in this book, these two orders are represented as a single order-Pedipalpida and classified likewise (after Werner 1935). It is felt that there are lot of confusions regarding the taxonomy of Indian forms of Whip-scorpions, so a wide revisionary •work is needed.
The tailless whip-scorpions are in many ways intermediate between the Whip-scorpions and the true spiders. They resemble the former in habits, being found under stones, fallen tree-trunks or in crevices of rocks and termite mounds: and differ in lacking of caudal appendages, abdomen jointed with the carapace by a slender pedicel, these are present in spiders. According to Gravely (1915) the Indian forms of tailless Whip-scorpions appear to breed at about the same time of year~ The eggs~ number of which varies from 15-60 or more, are carried under the abdomen of female. The newly hatched youngs are white, like young scorpions they climb up on the dorsal surface of the abdomen of the mother till their first moult.
