millipede

{also with the spelling – millipede}

a kind of worm-like crawling animals with segmented body (= body in several parts joined to form a continuous form, one behind the other, like a railway train), head and long tube-like , usually dark brown, body, two antennae, with two eyes, (no eyes in some species), 20-100 parts (segments), two pairs of legs on each segments, slow moving; size: 1-4 inches long (some species can grow up to 8-10 inches; one African species grows to 1½ feet in length, some species grow to a length of 0.8 inch only); and weight: {depends on the length and species} the average weight can be estimated as ‘1 foot long millipede may weigh 200 grams; feeds on (eats) decaying  (rotting) leaves and plant matter; lives for 10 years (depending on the species and the habitat); about 10,000 species found in the damp parts worldwide

Special Features:

First of all, the ‘milli’ or ‘mille’ does not represent ‘million’, but, being Latin in origin, represents a “thousand”, and ‘pede’ means ‘foot’, and so, ‘millipede’ means “thousand feet”.  However, a millipede does not have ‘thousand feet’.  Depending on the species and age, millipedes may have 80-400 legs (the maximum record is 750 legs) – two pairs (four) legs on each segment.

Millipedes are believed to be one of the oldest animals to crawl on land!

The ‘giant African millipede’ is the largest millipede – growing to 1½ feet in length!

Millipedes are useful to people in the sense that they burrow in the soil turning the inner soil up, like tilling, and also by eating away the rotting (decaying) plant matter.

Some millipede species are blind but luminescent, i.e. they glow!

When they are threatened or sense danger, millipedes roll into a tight ball to make it difficult for the predator to eat them.

Some millipede species stay with ant colonies, cleaning up their nest of decaying matter.  The ants keep them, and when the ants move to another nest, it is said, they carry or move the millipede with them!!

[Millipedes and centipedes !?

Millipedes are plant eating and useful creatures; they do not bite!  However, they give out a kind of poisonous fluid in defence which may cause some pain, itching or swelling to the part of an animal’s, including human’s, body that touched the fluid.   On the contrary, centipedes are flesh eating, and harmful; they bite, and the bite can be very painful, and itchy.  Immediate medical treatment is needed!]

For more on the differences between a millipede and a centipede, please click here, and please click here.

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