Newly Discovered Millipede Is First With More Than 1,000 Legs

For the primary time, scientists have discovered a millipede that really has 1,000 legs. More than 1,000, really: Plucked from deep in a mine in Western Australia, Eumillipes persephone has an eye-popping 1,306 legs alongside its 3.78-inch body.

The newly found millipede is an instance of superelongation, when the animals comprise greater than 180 segments; E. persephone has 330 segments. Living so deep within the Earth, the animal has no want for eyes, nevertheless it does have lengthy antennae and a beak for feeding. Details of its discovery had been published at present in Scientific Reports.

“This thing is like 60 meters underground, in the dark,” mentioned Paul Marek, an entomologist at Virginia Tech and lead writer of the brand new paper, in a telephone name. “It’s just mind-boggling to consider. There must be an orientation to food and resources, and how to find other mates,” he mentioned, noting that “the sensory structures seem to be very highly developed in this particular species.”

Its first title means “true thousand feet”—take word, different millipedes—and its second title comes from Persephone, the queen of the underworld in Greek mythology. The earlier record-holder for millipedes was found in California in 2006, however that species had solely 750 legs. “Their name has always been kind of a misnomer,” Marek mentioned. “All [previous] millipedes are virtual millipedes in the true sense.”

Millipedes develop new legs over the course of their lives, so even the 1,306-record at the moment held by one feminine E. persephone might be usurped sooner or later. Now that one millipede species has really met the thousand-leg threshold, maybe extra will observe.

For now, although, E. persephone is the leggiest animal on the planet. Each leg is brief, used to assist the animal tunnel by means of soil. The animal additionally has chemical defenses; over 100 glands alongside its physique secrete an alkaloid toxin that Marek mentioned might be used to discourage predators like ants, beetles, and moles. There are none of those glands on the millipede’s rear-end, as a result of the animals generally soak up water by everting their rectums. You wouldn’t need to by accident drink the toxin you’re secreting.

The stringy arthropod was discovered almost 200 ft underground in a drill gap, in Australian gold and tin territory; the researchers managed to lure the animal out by decreasing a cup stuffed with leaf litter on a string, leaving it there for weeks. When they lastly hauled it up, they put the leaf litter beneath a lamp, with a funnel under. The warmth from the lamp drove the still-living arthropods by means of the funnel to be inspected by the scientists.

Marek counted the legs manually, with a little bit of math to account for some segments which have a special variety of legs. It’s “something best done with a marker,” he mentioned, so that you don’t lose your home alongside the creature.

Since the millipede lives underground in mining territory, it’s in peril. Because fewer than 10 people are but identified to science, it’s exhausting to say simply what number of E. persephone are on the market.

“The reason I do research is for understanding planetary biodiversity, and preventing something called an anonymous extinction, where a species goes extinct without knowing anything about it,” Marek mentioned. “I hope we can learn more about these and conserve their habitat.”

The newly found species has many legs to face on, however finally, its survival might rely on the the actions of humankind.

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