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Haase (1889) regarded Scolopendrella as a myriopod, and Pocock (1893) assigned the Symphyla to an independent class, regarding Scolopendrella as “the living form that comes nearest to the hypothetical ancestor of the two great divisions of tracheates.” Schmidt’s work (1895) on the morphology of this genus is more extended and richly illustrated than Grassi’s, his method of research being more modern. He also regards this form as one of the lower myriopods.

In conclusion, it appears to us that, on the whole, if we throw out the single characteristic of the anteriorly situated genital opening, the ovarian tubes being directed toward the end of the body (Fig. 15, ovd, ov), there is not sufficient reason for placing the Symphyla among the Myriopoda, either below or near the diplopods. This is the only valid reason for not regarding Scolopendrella as the representative of a group from which the insects have descended, and which partly fills the wide abyss between Peripatus and insects. With the view of Pocock, that both insects and myriopods have descended from Scolopendrella, we do not agree, because this form has so many insectean features, and a single unpaired genital opening. For the same reason we should not agree with Schmidt in interpolating the Symphyla between the Pauropoda and Diplopoda. In these last two progoneate groups the genital openings are paired, hence they are much more primitive types than Scolopendrella, in which there is but a single opening. It seems most probable that the Symphyla, though progoneate, are more recent forms than the progoneate myriopods, which have retained the primitive feature of double sexual outlets. It is more probable that the Symphyla were the descendants of these polypodous forms. Certainly Scolopendrella is the only extant arthropod which, with the sole exception of the anteriorly situated genital opening, fulfils the conditions required of an ancestor of Thysanura, and through them of the winged insects. No one has been so bold as to suggest the derivation of insects from either diplopods or chilopods, while their origin from a form similar to Scolopendrella seems not improbable. Yet Uzel has very recently discovered that Campodea develops in some respects like Geophilus, the primitive band sinking in its middle into the yolk, with other features as in chilopods.^[7] The retention of a double sexual opening in the diplopods is paralleled by the case of Limulus with its double or paired sexual outlets, opening in a pair of papillæ, as compared with what are regarded as the generalized or more primitive Crustacea, which have an unpaired sexual opening.