Stone Centipede Lithobius microps (?)

This was found in a pitfall trap, and I didn't manage to photograph it alive. Indeed by the time I managed to examine it it had dried out completely and was rolled up making it difficult to get even a photo of its dead form. I have had problems examining dried up centipedes previously as they break when they're unfurled which is necessary to see some of the details, and I've found that macerating them in potassium hydroxide makes them more flexible again at the same time as cleaning them making it easier to see some of the finer details. However I forgot that when I treat them like this the ocelli can become impossible to see, and I made the blunder of macerating it before checking this. That put me at a big disadvantage in the identification process as the number of ocelli is a key piece of information.

I was able to make out a single ring near where the ocelli should be and wondered if this inidicated that it had a single ocellus, however this would place it in Lamyctes and the presence of spines on the legs and the simple claw on the hind legs ruled that out. When I got to where Lithobius microps keys, the main difference from other species that follow in the key is the number of ocelli. The notes said that this species usually has a double hind claw and about 25 antennal articles - mine had a single claw and 23 antennal articles, so I carried on. This got me to Lithobius crassipes which, based on the description in the key, seemed feasible. But I'd had to take the antennal article count as "about 20" (as it wasn't at least 26) and that wasn't really convincing. So I looked back at the notes for microps and noted that the last leg's claw can sometimes be single, and that the last legs are thicker than the others, which they very clearly were on mine. Moreover the BMIG website actually gives the antennal article count for microps as "usually about 23", so that was in fact spot on for mine. I think crassipes is usually bigger too, so microps seems to fit better on size, though I'm not completely sure it was fully mature.

Recognising that a key piece of information (ocelli count) is missing, and noting that photos of microps online show a redder-looking centipede, I'm regarding this as a provisional ID, at least until I have more experience of the group.

apparent Stone Centipede Lithobius microps after clearing in all but the first photo, showing antenna, forcipular coxosternite and apex of last leg, Wendling Beck Environment Project (Norfolk, UK), 11th-12th May 2025