Found, the first ‘true’ millipede with over 1,000 legs
A ‘TRUE’ millipede with more than 1,000 legs has been discovered for the first time – deep in a gold mine.
Despite the name, which comes from the Latin for 1,000 feet, until now the closest the arthropods got to the number was a Californian species with 750 limbs.
The newest member of the family was found nearly 200ft below the deserts of Western Australia by a biologist who was studying the impact of mining in the area. The strange-looking creature has no eyes, huge antennae – and an astonishing total of 1,306 legs along its 9.5cm (3.75-inch) length. Its body is less than a millimetre (0.04 inches) wide.
Paul Marek, who led a study at
Virginia Tech in the US, said: ‘This millipede has more legs than any other creature on Earth, living or dead, which is really quite exciting.
‘We found four adults, which we had to uncoil and photograph. It took me three hours to count the legs on each.
‘I grew up reading that millipede means “one thousand legs” but they don’t actually have this many. It is not that often that your research means textbooks actually will need to be rewritten.’
The new species has been christened Eumillipes persephone – with ‘eu’ meaning true in Latin and Persephone a reference to the Greek goddess who was dragged down into the underworld by Hades.
Millipedes are born with just four sets of legs but continuously add pairs well into adulthood. The previous record-holder was Illacme plenipes, which is found in central California and has up to 750 legs.
Eumillipes persephone is under threat from mining for gold, nickel and other minerals in the Eastern Goldfields Province east of Perth. The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports.