During the Three Kingdoms period, Cao Jie mentioned in "The Six Dynasties": "A hundred-legged worm will not be stiff until death." Does a hundred-legged worm really have one hundred feet? What's more, in the big family of millipedes, are there really 1,000-legged bugs?
If this question was answered before, it would be that 1,000 legs are just an exaggerated imaginary number. But not long ago, scientists did find millipedes with more than 1,000 legs.
Millipedes have many names, such as millipedes, millipedes, and Libraworms. In terms of biological classification, they are the collective name for members of the phylum Diplopoda of the phylum Arthropoda. There are nearly 10,000 millipede species recorded worldwide, and as more and more millipedes are discovered, scientists estimate that there are at least 15,000 species on Earth.
As arthropods, millipedes have typical body segments, except that the first three segments after the head segment have only one pair of legs, and the remaining segments have two pairs of legs. Previously, the record for millipede legs was 750, making it the creature with the most legs in the world.
Do millipedes really have 1,000 legs? Not long ago, a discovery by scientists justified the name of millipedes. Deep underground in Australia, researchers have discovered a new species with more than 1,300 legs. "It got me very excited," says Paul Marek, an entomologist at Virginia Tech. He first learned of the creature in September 2020, when he received an email. The sender is Bruno Buzzato, a biologist at Benelongia Environmental Consulting in Western Australia, who has attached a photo of a pale creature measuring only about 2cm and less than 1mm wide , has no eyes and has many legs.
Buzato discovered that the filamentous creature lived deep underground - in a narrow borehole more than 60 meters deep in Western Australia. "When I first saw these creatures, I was immediately excited," said Buzzato. He thought they must be related to a very long millipede from California, which also lives underground and is Beige, with no eyes, is the record holder with 750 legs. Since Marek has studied the long-legged California millipede, Buzzato sent him the photos to see what he had in mind.
Because some species of millipedes can grow legs as adults, after a few weeks and some complicated paperwork, the Australian millipede carcass was mailed to Virginia. There, Marek carefully counted with a microscope and found a female millipede with 1,306 legs.
"It's unbelievable," he said. "750 legs seems like a lot for an animal. 1,306 legs is pretty amazing." Lipps means "true millipede" and Persephone is a goddess in Greek mythology. The ancestors of this species, like Persephone, must have started life on the surface and, at some point in evolutionary history, began to move underground, perhaps because above-ground Australia became increasingly arid and uninhabitable .
Genetic analysis shows that omegalips are not close relatives of California millipedes, despite their striking similarity. This suggests that subterranean life prompted the two species to evolve in similar ways. They all became pale and eyeless, like many burrowing animals. Malek said that the reason why they have so many legs is because they live in the underground world. When they move, they need to pass through the gaps in the soil. More legs means more strength, which will give them more force to push the soil. . At the same time, having an extra-long gut may also help millipedes get more nutrients from a sparse diet.
Most millipedes are poisonous, but not deadly. Their presence will affect the roots and shoots of some plants. Of course, as important decomposers in the forest ecosystem, they will also improve the soil environment. Malek hopes the discovery will draw attention to the biodiversity deep underground, a precious resource that is hidden alongside precious metals.
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