100-million-years-old "island-surfing": SRµCT of Cretaceous genitals reveals the oldest and first fossils of the Gondwanan group Dalodesmidae

The material is part of the manuscript titled "100-million-years-old "island-surfing": SRµCT of Cretaceous genitals reveals the oldest fossils of Gondwanan Dalodesmidae". All volume files have been reconstructed from slices obtained from CT and SRµCT scans. Abstract: Lack of diagnostic characters in fossils is a widespread issue in palaeontology. Although Kachin amber (100 myo) is yielding exceptional specimens, a major proportion of low preservation fossils are disregarded. In flat-backed millipedes (Polydesmida), this issue is critical as only two species are identified out of hundreds of reported fossils. With the popularisation of micro-tomography and synchrotron-based micro-tomography for palaeontology, it is important to assess their strengths in investigating difficult and low-preservation specimens. We report its success in capturing fully intact gonopods from two fossils of low preservation. Both specimens belong to the same new genus Dalocarinatus gen. nov., but represent two species: D. luxuriosus sp. nov. and D. inopinatus sp. nov. They are the oldest and definitive fossil representatives of the group Dalodesmidae, they also offer a glimpse of their presence on Burma Terrane, shaking their actual geographical distribution, restricted to past Gondwanan regions.