40 Fun Facts About Millipedes

Which pop star had a new twisted-claw millipede from Tennessee named after her by a scientist fan?

Taylor Swift got the honour because her music carried lead author Derek Hennen through graduate school, and the species lives only in a state where she once lived.

In which country was the first millipede with over 1,000 legs found, deep inside a mining drill hole?

Australia yielded the record-breaker in 2020, when a female with 1,306 legs came up from 60 metres underground, more legs than any other animal on Earth.

The word millipede comes from Latin words with which meaning, a promise almost no species keeps?

Thousand feet is the literal meaning of mille and pes, yet common species have between 34 and 400 legs.

Which animals of Madagascar bite toxic millipedes, rub them through their fur and seem to enjoy a buzz?

Black lemurs nip a millipede until it oozes its defensive chemicals, smear them over their bodies and appear to enjoy the psychoactive effect.

Which notorious poison do many flat-backed millipedes release as a gas when attacked?

Cyanide, with its bitter-almond smell, is made by millipedes of the order Polydesmida, the largest order with more than 5,000 species, many of them brightly coloured as a warning.

What unusual trick do Motyxia millipedes use at night to warn predators that they are loaded with poison?

They glow in the dark, and the brighter a species shines the bigger its poison glands, so the light works as an honest warning to hunters.

A newly hatched millipede typically has how many legs, gaining more each time it moults?

Six legs, in three pairs, is the usual starting kit, and each moult adds new segments and legs, a way of growing called anamorphosis.

Which country gives its name to the invasive millipede whose swarms make trains slip near Adelaide?

Portugal lends its name to the millipede, which arrived around 1953, perhaps in ships' ballast; Adelaide's suburban trains now carry brushes to sweep it off the rails.

A big Tanzanian millipede named in 2011 is commonly known as the wandering leg what?

Sausage is a straight translation of its scientific name, Crurifarcimen vagans, and the 16-centimetre animal made a list of the top 10 new species of 2012.

How many legs does a millipede carry on most body segments, twice as many as a centipede has?

Four legs per ring is the group's trademark, because each ring is really two segments fused together, which is why the class is called Diplopoda, or double foot.

What do most millipedes eat, a diet that makes them important recyclers of the forest floor?

Decaying leaves and other dead plant matter are the staple, and a single species can get through as much as a tenth of all the leaf litter where it lives.

Which company released the arcade shooter Millipede as a sequel to its bug-blasting hit Centipede?

Atari followed Centipede a year later, swapping the Bug Blaster for an elf called the Archer and adding DDT bombs that wipe out everything in their cloud.

Why do meerkats and coatis roll a captured millipede along the ground before eating it?

To rub off its toxins: the rolling makes the millipede spend its defensive secretions and wipes them away, leaving a much safer meal.

Arthropleura, a millipede over two metres long, lived mainly in which geological period?

Carboniferous rocks hold most of its remains: the largest land arthropod of all time left trackways up to 50 centimetres wide and died out early in the Permian.

The largest pill millipede, an emerald-green species, rolls into a ball the size of which object?

A baseball is the size an adult female reaches when curled up, an example of island gigantism in a species found only in Madagascar.

Pill millipedes are a textbook case of convergent evolution with which unrelated crustaceans?

Woodlice, or pill bugs, evolved the same roll-up armour on their own, and the ball trick even arose twice among the millipedes themselves.

After moulting, what do most millipedes do with the old exoskeleton they have just shed?

They eat it, recycling the hard armour, and many do their moulting hidden inside a specially prepared chamber in the soil.

Which colourful amphibians are thought to borrow toxic compounds from millipedes for their own defence?

Poison dart frogs are believed to build millipede chemicals into their own defences, turning a dangerous meal into a borrowed weapon.

Which Greek goddess gave her name to the leggiest millipede ever found, living 60 metres underground?

Persephone, queen of the underworld, suited a pale, thread-thin animal about a millimetre wide and nearly ten centimetres long.

What vivid colour is the spiny dragon millipede found in a Thai cavern, a warning that it is toxic?

Shocking pink advertises its poison glands, and the three-centimetre animal was ranked third among the top ten new species of 2008.

Japan's train millipede swarms every eight years, a rhythm otherwise confirmed only in which insects?

Cicadas were the only confirmed periodical animals until a 2021 study tracked the millipede's broods; its swarms have obstructed mountain trains on Honshu since 1920.

A fossil-hunting bus driver found Pneumodesmus, among the oldest known land animals, in which country?

Scotland is where the one-centimetre fossil of this millipede lookalike turned up, on the Aberdeenshire shore, and it was named newmani after its finder, Mike Newman.

The former record holder for most legs, the 750-legged Illacme plenipes, lives only in which US state?

California is its only home: first seen in San Benito County in 1926, the species was not found again until 2005, almost 80 years later.

Which fruit gives Virginia's Apheloria millipede its nickname, thanks to the scent of its defences?

Cherry, or almond, is how its defensive cocktail smells, and science has known the species since 1770, when a British zoologist described specimens sent from Virginia.

In Brachycybe feather millipedes, which family member coils around the eggs until they hatch?

The father stands guard in a rare case of paternal care among invertebrates, and eggs taken away from him all fail to survive.

What material do Chordeumatida millipedes produce at their tail ends to build moulting and egg chambers?

Silk comes from spinnerets on the last body segment, which is why the group and its close relatives are known as spinning millipedes.

Millipedes and centipedes together belong to which major group of arthropods?

Myriapods, from the Greek for countless feet, also include the little-known pauropods and symphylans; millipedes are the largest class in the group, with about 12,000 named species.

Which naturalist first classified millipedes scientifically, placing them among wingless insects?

Carl Linnaeus named seven species in his Systema Naturae of 1758, and millipedes had to wait until 1844 for a class of their own, Diplopoda.

In which country are millipedes commonly called shongololos?

South Africa took the word from Xhosa and Zulu ishongololo, and it is also a name for the giant African millipede, the largest species alive today.

Which tiny creatures live on the giant African millipede, cleaning its armour in return for food?

Mites crawl among its legs in a partnership that suits both sides, and the docile millipede itself is popular as a pet.

The giant African millipede carries oxygen in its blood using a protein built on which metal, not iron?

Copper sits at the heart of hemocyanin, the oxygen carrier that helps the millipede stay active in low-oxygen spots such as rotting logs and dense leaf litter.

Which body parts are missing from every flat-backed millipede, the largest order with over 5,000 species?

Eyes were lost by their ancestors, so these millipedes find their way through the leaf litter with their antennae.

Which insect hunters include a subfamily of over 600 species that specialise in preying on millipedes?

Assassin bugs of the subfamily Ectrichodiinae hunt at night from under leaf litter, and many wear warning colours of metallic blue, red or yellow.

The Bobo people of which West African country eat boiled, dried millipedes served with tomato sauce?

Burkina Faso is the only place where people are recorded eating millipedes, which elsewhere turn up in folk remedies and even on poisoned arrows.

Which small plants grow on the back of the millipede Psammodesmus bryophorus, perhaps as camouflage?

Mosses and related plants, at least ten species of them, have been found growing on its back, gaining a lift to new ground while the millipede may gain a disguise.

Soft-bodied Polyxenida millipedes lack armour and chemical glands, so how do they disable attacking ants?

Shedding barbed hairs works because the hooked bristles tangle in an attacker's limbs and mouthparts until it cannot move.

Which normally scavenging insects include a Central American species that kills and eats live millipedes?

Dung beetles of the species Deltochilum valgum, just eight millimetres long, bite into far larger millipedes at a joint and sometimes take the head clean off.

How do some male pill millipedes court a female before mating, a talent unique among millipedes?

By chirping, a courtship signal called stridulation: a few giant pill millipedes are the only millipedes known to produce sound at all.

Some millipedes can survive freshwater floods by living submerged underwater for up to how long?

Up to 11 months underwater has been recorded, a surprise for animals that breathe air through permanently open holes beside their legs.

Capuchin monkeys rub millipedes over their fur in the rainy season, apparently to repel which pests?

Mosquitoes are thought to be driven off by the benzoquinones in the secretions, which the monkeys prize so highly that several will share one millipede.