Newly discovered millipede worm breaks world record for having a thousand men

Although species that live at great depths may seem distant from life on the surface, these ecosystems play an important ecological role associated with life above ground.

Researchers have discovered a new type of worm "millipede", which has more legs than any other creature on the planet, with up to 1,300 legs, and these long creatures live deep in the Earth's surface.

The new world record holder is a pale, eyeless creature with a long, threadlike body about 100 times longer than its width. Its conical head contains enormous antennas for navigating a dark world ruled by pheromones and an improved beak for feeding on fungi. It was described in a study published in the journal Scientific Reports Dec. 16.

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"The word millipede has always been a bit of a misnomer ," Paul Marek, an entomologist at Virginia Tech University and lead author of the study describing the newly discovered species, told Live Science . "All other known millipedes have much fewer legs than their name suggests, with many species having fewer than 100 legs," he said, stressing that "it is difficult to count the legs because the animal tends to curl up like a small watch-spring."

Millipedes

Millipedes, or thousand-legged worms, are animals of the phylum Arthropods that have two pairs of legs in each section of their body, except for the first section that is located behind the head, and a few of the later sections contain only one pair of legs. Each section containing two pairs of legs is actually two sections fused together to form one section, according to researchers.

Most millipedes have a long cylindrical body, and some of them have a huge flat back. There are also millipedes known as globular millipedes, which are shorter than the rest of the species, and they are slow-moving and able to roll like a ball, as spherical insects do.

Most millipedes feed on rotting leaves and other dead plant debris, and these animals can be nuisance parasites in home gardens, particularly in greenhouses where they can cause significant damage to growing seeds.

Millipedes can be easily distinguished from their close relatives, centenarians or 100-legged worms, or as they are commonly known as "44 mothers", which move quickly and have one pair of legs on each section of their body.

Record breaking

Despite their name, these animals do not have a thousand men, and the familiar species have between 36 and 400 men. But the newly discovered species "Eumilipes persephone", named after Persephone - the daughter of Zeus who was taken by Hades to the underworld according to Greek mythology - is the oldest known animal on the planet. One specimen that Marek analyzed had 1,306 legs, which broke the current record.

The copious set of legs also provides an indication of the age of these creatures. Millipedes grow adding body parts called rings. Entomologists can calculate these parts like tree rings to determine the relative ages of individuals of the same species. "I think these animals are very long-lived," Marek said.

These creatures were first spotted in an area in Western Australia known as "Gold Fields", an area where companies prospect and extract minerals and dig deep and narrow holes ranging from 20 to 100 meters deep, and if miners do not find any of the minerals, the holes are plugged and neglected.

Entomologists from Western Australia came up with the idea of ​​sampling these wells because they provide the perfect opportunity to delve deeper into subterranean ecosystems, and allow researchers to sample a wide range of life thriving beneath our feet.

Although species that live at great depth can seem far from life on the surface, these ecosystems play an important ecological role associated with surface life, as these subterranean decomposers help to recycle the nutrients on which surface life depends, and contribute to Filtration of toxins from drinking water. However, we know very little about the world beneath our feet. The new discovery shows that "there is a lot of discovery to be made," Marek said.

Don't expect to see one of these rummaging through backyard leaf litter, as this species was discovered 60 meters below the surface in a relatively unexplored environment built of banded iron formations and volcanic rocks.