The Chilopoda possess a bewildering array of muscles and no attempt will be made here to catalogue them. Meinert (1883) described the head muscles of Scolopendra and Bekker (1926, 1949) the trunk muscles of a geophilomorph and a scolopendromorph and compared the dorsal musculature of Cryptops and Lithobius. Bücherl (1940) described the musculature of Scolopendra viridicornis Newport, and Jangi (1966) that of Scolopendra morsitans though the trunk musculature was dealt with only briefly. The extrinsic and intrinsic musculature of the antennae of S. morsitans and the musculature of its terminal legs were described by Jangi (1960, 1961). Applegarth (1952) described the musculature of the head of Pseudolithobius megaloporus (Stuxberg), Rilling (1960, 1968) the head and trunk musculature of Lithobius forficatus in great detail and Füller (1963a) the musculature of Scutigera, Necrophloesphagus and Cryptops. Manton (1965) investigated the musculature of members of all five chilopod orders: she found Bekker's descriptions of the musculature of geophilomorphs and scolopendromorphs accurate but she could not entirely confirm his findings on Cryptops. She confirmed Rilling's (1960) observations on Lithobius.

Trunk muscles

The arrangement of the trunk musculature in myriapods has been summarised by Manton (1973). She distinguished six groups of trunk muscles: superficial, dorsal, lateral and sternal longitudinals, deep oblique and deep dorso-ventral muscles (Fig. 46).