Eumillipes
Eumillipes is a long, thin, pale millipede that lives deep under the ground in Australia. It has more legs than any other animal on Earth: one of them had 1,306 legs. It was the first millipede ever found with more than a thousand legs.
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Fun facts
It was found 60 metres under the ground, deeper than a 15-storey house is tall. Scientists caught it by lowering traps with damp leaves into holes drilled by miners.
It has no eyes at all. In the dark underground it finds its way with its big, thick feelers.
Its body is only about 1 millimetre thick, as thin as a piece of spaghetti, but almost 10 centimetres long.
The females have more legs than the males. The males found so far had about 800 legs, the females up to 1,306.
Scientists first described it in 2021, so it is one of the newest bugs in this wiki.
Most asked questions about Eumillipes
?Does any millipede really have 1,000 legs?
Yes, Eumillipes does. One female had 1,306 legs, more than any other animal ever found.
?Where does Eumillipes live?
Deep under the dry soil of Western Australia, in the dark.
?How long is Eumillipes?
It can be almost 10 centimetres long but only 1 millimetre thick.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Eumillipes persephone
- Named by
- Marek et al., 2021
- Group
- Centipedes and millipedes
- Family
- Siphonotidae
- Classification
- Diplopoda > Polyzoniida > Siphonotidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
Where the facts come from
- Eumillipes (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Aggyrolemnoixytes /Paul Marek. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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