At last, a millipede that's actually 'thousand-footed'

NEW YORK • It is a well-known fact among entomologists that whoever named the millipede was being a touch dramatic. The name means "thousand-footed", but no millipede has 1,000 feet.

At least, that was true until now.

A discovery deep below the surface of Australia has shown that "millipede" is not always a misnomer. Researchers found a new species that can have more than 1,300 legs. The finding was published on Thursday in the Scientific Reports journal.

"This is super exciting for me," said Associate Professor Paul Marek, an entomologist at Virginia Tech in the United States, who first learnt about the creature in September last year when he received an e-mail from Dr Bruno Buzatto.

Dr Buzatto, a biologist with Bennelongia Environmental Consultants in Western Australia, had attached pictures of a pale creature with no eyes but many legs. It was a few inches long but less than a millimetre wide.

He found the thread-like animal living deep underground - as far as 60m below the earth in narrow boreholes in Western Australia.

Mining companies dig these holes to search for minerals such as gold and nickel, and hire environmental consultants to study how mining might impact wildlife.

As one of those consultants, Dr Buzatto had baited traps with damp leaf litter, dropped them down boreholes, and later reeled up eight of the pale creatures.

"When I saw the animals for the first time, I was immediately excited," Dr Buzatto said.

He thought they must be related to a very long millipede from California. That species also lives underground, is cream-coloured and eyeless and was the standing record holder with up to 750 legs.

As Prof Marek had studied the California millipedes, Dr Buzatto sent him photos of the weird Australian specimens to see what he thought.

A preliminary count revealed one individual with over 800 legs. But as some types of millipedes can add legs throughout their adult lives, that was not the final word.

After several weeks and some complicated paperwork, the carcasses of the Australian millipedes arrived by mail in Virginia. There, painstaking counting by microscope turned up a female with 1,306 legs.

"It was mind-boggling, because it's almost double the previous number of legs in millipedes," Prof Marek said.

At some point in its evolutionary history, the millipede began to move deeper and deeper below ground. Genetic analysis also showed it is not a close relative of the Californian millipede, suggesting underground life drove both species to evolve in a similar way.

They both became wan and eyeless, like many cave-dwelling animals. They both have large antennae. And their many legs may give them more power to push and corkscrew their way through the earth, Prof Marek said. A long gut may help to wring nutrition out of a sparse diet, he added.

The scientists named the new species Eumillipes persephone - Eumillipes means "true millipede", and Persephone is a goddess in Greek mythology who was dragged to the underworld by Hades.

NYTIMES