The two highest ranking taxa of Onychophora display a distinct pattern of distribution. The Peripatidae are restricted to the Neotropics, the Antilles, West Africa and areas of South-East Asia including Borneo, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. The Peripatopsidae show a classic Gondwanan distribution and are present in Australia, New Guinea, Chile, South Africa and New Zealand (see the map below). The oldest putative onychophoran fossil, Helenodora inopinata, occurred in the Late Carboniferous and was found in the Middle Pennsylvanian Francis Creek Shale in Illinois (Thompson & Jones 1980). Additional fossils have been reported from the Dominican, Baltic and Myanmar amber (Poinar 2000; Grimaldi et al. 2002).