Finally, a Millipede That Lives Up to Its Name

By Gina Wynn

If you’ve ever worked in a garden, raked leaves, or cleaned out your garage or basement, you may have come across a small trainlike creature gliding along or curled up in a tiny ball. Its abundance of legs probably helped you identify the critter as a millipede. Meaning “thousand feet” in Latin, the name has been a misnomer, until now.

With 80 to 400 appendages being the norm for common millipedes and 750 having been counted on rare species, “thousand feet” or “thousand-legger” has not been an accurate description of these animals. That is, until the recent discovery of a 1,306-legged millipede species in Western Australia. The Australian and Virginia Tech scientists who unearthed and identified the true millipedes published the details of their study in the December 16 issue of Scientific Reports.

She’s Got Legs

The new millipede species named Eumillipes persephone set a world record as the animal with the greatest number of legs on Earth, according to the study. Eight representatives of the leggy species — male, female, and juvenile — were lured into traps by researchers searching for subterranean animals in up to 197-foot-deep drill holes for mineral exploration. The traps, set at different levels, contained delicious, wet, decomposing leaf litter that the millipedes could not resist.

Cruising the Underworld

Aptly named E. persephone after Persephone, queen of the underworld, the record-holding arthropods feel at home in the cool, damp, dark environment. They tunnel through soil searching for decaying food with their hard-shelled, non-pigmented, cream-colored bodies that are approximately 3.5 to 4 inches long — about the size of a school ID.

Long and threadlike, the creatures are only around .037 inches wide. With no eyes, cone-shaped heads, and a beak for feeding, they use enormous antennae to navigate the depths of their world. Efficient scavengers, their 330 sliding trunk segments work with powerful jointed legs and feet to move in up to eight directions at once.

Early Explorers

Although best known for their means of locomotion, millipede species deserve recognition for their longevity. They are thought to have been among the first animals on Earth to inhabit land more than 400 million years ago during the Silurian period. Today, there are around 10,000 species that live on every continent except Antarctica.

Compared to their ancient relatives, millipede characteristics have changed very little over time. Perhaps that explains why scientists are so astounded by their discovery of E. persephone and thrilled that one millipede species will finally live up to its name.