#i know millipedes are technically neither bugs nor insects but I feel most people who’d like content warnings for them

[critter-of-the-day]

24th of October 2024: Eumillipes persephone

It turns out we have another Halloween Critter who is alone in a genus and discovered very recently. This is Eumillipes persephone, who has been dubbed the first true millipede, as one of them was the first millipede found to have over 1000 legs in 2021 [1].

They are less than a millimetre in width and are around 10 cm long. They were originally found in a drill hole in Western Australia, at a depth of 60 m. This actually inspired their species name persephone as it is a reference to them having been found in the underworld. The Eumillipes part roughly translates to “true thousand feet” [1].

Despite all this advertisement, not all of the specimen found actually had over 1000 feet. The largest, a female had 1306, but the other female had 998, and the males were both below with 778 and 818 (though both still breaking the previous record of 750) [1]. Interestingly all of their body segmentation was exactly or in one circumstance one off from being multiples of 11. This isn’t uncommon for millipedes, and suggests that when they grow their segments, they multiply them, rather than growing them one by one [2].

Their segment rings are also mostly unfused, allowing them squeeze through the narrow underground. They move by extending and contracting parts of their body, much like you would expect from an earthworm, but with the added mobility and manoeuvrability of having hundreds upon hundreds of legs [3]. Thus their super-elongation came as a response to their extreme habitat. While other millipedes have also been found to be really long, such as the previous record holder Illacme plenipes, genetic data shows that this is just convergent evolution, rather than them both coming from one long ancestor [1].

Sources: [1] [2] [3] [Image]