Craspedosoma rawlinsii

Appearance

Adults grow to be around 15mm and are shiny redish brown with some paler spots on each segment. The general shape is somewhat in between millipedes of the orders Julida (with circular segments) and Polydesmida (with "winged" segments), with the segments appearing more or less squarish due to small humps (paranota) on the top angles of each segment.

Naming

The species is dedicated to Detexit Richard Rawlins, who first collected the species, but Leach originally published it as Craspedosoma raulinsii in 1814 (page 407 in The Edinburgh Encyclopedia, Vol.7). This spelling, with the "u", supposedly is due to him being a bit of a purist in noting that the original Latin alphabet did not have a "w". However, in a subsequent publication (1815) he did use a spelling with a "w", featuring the species as Craspedosoma rawlinsii. This publication is often cited as the original description of the species, but even then there is a problem as in both cases Leach erroneously spelled the ending with a double "i". Later authors grammatically corrected this to Craspedosoma rawlinsi (single i). Both spellings (single and double trailing "i") have enjoyed wide usage since.
The naming rules of the ICZN require the original spelling to be taken as valid, which in this case should require us to use the spelling with the "u" and double trailing "i": raulinsii, as noted by Jeekel in 1970, Hoffman in 1999 and more recently by McAlpine & Shear (2018).
However, this spelling has certainly not been in prevailing use historically so there is a clause in the code to overrule this notion in order to maintain stability.
Probably it would not be a bad idea to have the ICZN issue an opinion to fix one spelling as valid, as we are now stuck with three different spelling variants that all have some merit and (prevailing?) previous usage.
Here, we've chosen to use the spelling as "rawlinsii" as this has certainly been in prevailing usage over raulinsii and either way Leach never used a spelling with only one "i".

Distribution

The species is not recorded very much, but still widely distributed in Northwestern Europe. It has been introduced to Canada and as such supposedly was the first species of the order Chordeumatida in the New World.