Millipede Lab
@apheloria.bsky.social
A central mission of our research is the exploration and description of biodiversity, especially Appalachian millipede species.
Some tiny “pill millipedes” from Tennessee. On the right is an Onomeris, a member of order Glomerida, all of which are adapted to roll into spheres. Left is Desmonus earlei, a modified polydesmidan “flat-backed” millipede. Several polydesmidan families have independently adapted a volvating form.
#NewSpecies! New #katydid from #usa just chirped: Phymonotus glyphopyrenos Treatment: treatment.plazi.org/id/03B487CF-... Publication: doi.org/10.11646/zoo... #Zootaxa #PhymonotusGlyphopyrenos #FAIRdata #OA #taxonomy #biodiversity #nature #conservation #fauna #entomology #insects #orthoptera
Bristlepede 🤎 Polyxenus sp bristle millipede. Just a couple millimeters long.
Scientific fashions, perfectionisms, and the value of traditional morphological taxonomy. #evolbio #philsci 🧪 waynemaddison.wordpress.com/2026/07/16/s...
Scientific fashions, perfectionisms, and the value of traditional morphological taxonomy
Like any conversation, science goes through wave after wave of fashion. One decade, it will be all the rage to study one type of question, and to shun sloppiness of one kind but tolerate another. A…
waynemaddison.wordpress.com
New paper out!!! We report five millipede species recorded in Japan for the first time, all from the Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands! 🇯🇵🏝️ Also, we focus on two Prosopodesmus species with different adult male segment numbers (20 vs 19) to discuss the evolution of their life history. It's open access!
Biodiversity Data Journal@bdj.pensoft.net · 2mo agoField surveys on Japan's remote Ogasawara Islands (2023-2026) uncovered five polydesmid millipede species never before recorded in Japan. Full open-access study here: doi.org/10.3897/BDJ....
previously, I reared this incredibly handsome Pachydesmus to adulthood with the same method and diet. despite his impressive size he’s actually on the small side for his species, one of the largest millipedes in the eastern US!
invertebrate@crevicedwelling.bsky.social · 2mo agoanother success rearing Xystodesmidae penultimates to adulthood! I caught this male emerging from his molting chamber this morning.
🗺️ The limestone caves of northeastern Laos have yielded a remarkable find, with the flat-backed millipede genus Sellanucheza being recorded from the country for the first time, alongside three newly described species: S. laotica, S. longispina, and S. ancorata: doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1282.186746
Virginia Tech researchers have completed the first evolutionary history of Earth’s first land animals, pushing their origins tens of millions of years deeper into the past. 🔗: go.vt.edu/uqJT2
chasing these led me deep into the woods and I got a little lost and so basically I think these count as fairies
#NewSpecies! New pill #millipede from #thailand just tiptoed in: Zephronia tratensis Treatment: treatment.plazi.org/id/F24EBD4F-... Publication: doi.org/10.5852/ejt.... #EJTaxonomy #ZephroniaTratensis #FAIRdata #OA #taxonomy #ecology #biodiversity #nature #conservation #animals #fauna #diplopoda
Your tax dollars once paid a doctor at a VA hospital in the Bronx to study the venom of a poisonous lizard. It produced Ozempic, Wegovy, and a $38.6 billion therapeutic class. 🧵
Many myriapods spend a good deal of effort giving their offspring the best possible start in life, even if they don’t provide direct care. This female Narceus seals each egg in wood pulp and feces, carefully molding these protective capsules (and first meals) with her legs and mouthparts.
This is a deep-sea isopod. Dr. Johanna Weston, a deep-ocean biologist and guest investigator at @whoi.edu, is confident this is Bathyopsurus nybelini, one of her favorite animals. Learn why via the YouTube caption: youtube.com/shorts/DenUj...
From fossil evidence, millipedes were the first animals adapted to life on land about 425 million years ago. In this new paper, we reconstructed their ancient evolutionary history across nearly half a billion years. 🌎 www.cell.com/current-biol...
Reshaping the millipede tree of life by inclusion of the last two unsampled orders
Vasquez-Valverde et al. estimate the ancient evolutionary history of millipedes and analyze the last two remaining unsampled orders, Siphonocryptida and Siphoniulida, two rare paleoendemics whose plac...
cell.com
Score, new Magnapinna footage!! @schmidtocean.bsky.social dive 931 part 2 #Doldrums #MarineLife
Happy ’Old Croone Day’ - scientists celebrate 4 June 1662 when Dr William Croone presented the Royal Society (London) with “…two embryos of puppy-dogs, which … were put in spirit in a glass-vial sealed hermetically...” marking the beginning of fluid preservation of animals still in museums today
🪼 Your tax dollars paid a scientist to squeeze jellyfish through cheesecloth. Osamu Shimomura processed tens of thousands on an NSF grant to understand why they glow. He found a protein that glowed green under UV light. Called it "green protein." Nobody cared. For decades.
This is why we fund basic science. You never know from what little curiosity will derive the tools that enable greatness.
TK (Takashi DY) Kozai@bioniclab.bsky.social · 3mo ago🪼 Your tax dollars paid a scientist to squeeze jellyfish through cheesecloth. Osamu Shimomura processed tens of thousands on an NSF grant to understand why they glow. He found a protein that glowed green under UV light. Called it "green protein." Nobody cared. For decades.
Some species may disappear before we even know they exist. Researchers described a new genus and species of millipede from a tiny rainforest fragment in Madagascar, an ecosystem smaller than many city parks, yet home to unique endemic life. #LIBresearch © Golles et al., CC BY 4.0 1/3
🐛 The first record of a Rhopalomeris pill millipede in China has been established after a new species was discovered in the Dinghushan National Nature Reserve. 📖 Access the full study to find out more: doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1280.190182 #millipede #newspecies
🐛 A total of eight millipede species, including four recorded in Guizhou Province for the first time, were identified within the Chishui Alsophila National Nature Reserve. 🔬 Two species entirely new to science were also discovered and described in the following study: doi.org/10.3897/zse.102.185791
🏛️Happy International Museum Day and a very special 80th anniversary to the International Council of #Museums! ✨Visit our latest blog to explore our "Best of the Archive" collection and find out more about the articles we have selected for this year's celebration: #InternationalMuseumDay #IMD2026
Bridging Worlds Through Knowledge: Celebrating International Museum Day 2026 | Blog
Pensoft Publishers is proud to celebrate International Museum Day and its 2026 theme: Museums Uniting a Divided World.
blog.pensoft.net
beauty in the minute details! what i believe are droplets of defensive chemicals, arising from the base of bundled hairs on a millipede, deep in a decaying log perhaps in the genus Apterourus, and based on where I was located, likely an undescribed species. which is also cool ...
New Ancient Centipede Ancestor for #FossilFriday! The latest creature from the Waukesha Biota, Wisconsin's cradle of Silurian critters, is Waukartus muscularis, a marine myriapod whose legs were primed to crawl onto land. Latest for @nytimes.com: www.nytimes.com/2026/05/05/s...
How Ancient Centipede Ancestors Conquered the Earth
nytimes.com
#ProcB in @nytimes.com | A marine stem-myriapod from the Silurian Waukesha Lagerstätte, Wisconsin, USA: terrestrial traits pre-date the transition to land: doi.org/10.1098/rspb...
nytimes.com
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