The First True Millipede: New Species With More Than 1,000 Legs Discovered in Western Australia (theguardian.com) 34
The first ever millipede with more than 1,000 legs been discovered in Western Australia. From a report: The species, which is the first "true" millipede, has 1,306 legs and was found up to 60 metres underground in a mining area in the Eastern Goldfields region of WA. Researchers have named the new species Eumillipes persephone, in reference to the Greek goddess of the underworld, Persephone. It breaks the previous record set by Illacme plenipes, which is found in central California and has up to 750 legs.
A team of researchers discovered the millipede while conducting a subterranean environmental impact assessment. Dr Bruno Buzatto, a biologist at Bennelongia Environmental Consultants, described the find as "incredibly lucky." "These animals were so unique," Buzatto said. "As soon as I realised how long they were ... I realised they had to be something completely different." The species has a long, thread-like body comprising up to 330 segments, with short legs and a cone-shaped head. Like other animals that live in constant darkness, it is blind and pale.
A team of researchers discovered the millipede while conducting a subterranean environmental impact assessment. Dr Bruno Buzatto, a biologist at Bennelongia Environmental Consultants, described the find as "incredibly lucky." "These animals were so unique," Buzatto said. "As soon as I realised how long they were ... I realised they had to be something completely different." The species has a long, thread-like body comprising up to 330 segments, with short legs and a cone-shaped head. Like other animals that live in constant darkness, it is blind and pale.
It is from Australia so it must be deadly. (Score:5, Funny)
I think they are going to find new species in Australia, not because no one ever found them before, just they didn't survive the encounter.
Re: (Score:2)
Cue the next story being Indo-Chimp Ms. Mash whining that the species has been disabled by CLiMaTe CHaNgE.
Why do you post AC? We can tell you're a worthless troll by what you're writing. Do you not believe your own bullshit enough to put your name to it?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
You mean amazon.com?
I shouldn't find it scarier than anything else... (Score:2)
With 1306 legs it might as well just be a snake,
Re: (Score:2)
1306 > 0
Re: (Score:2)
Australia is full of Nope (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Australia, you say? (Score:3, Insightful)
UserID? (Score:5, Funny)
Like other animals that live in constant darkness, it is blind and pale.
Hey, I resemble that remark!
Re: (Score:2)
But you were resurrected by Jesus!
Slightly misleading abstract. (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Millipedes normally have 4 legs per segment, so 330 segments would be 1320 legs, but does the number of segments include segments that don't have legs normally, like maybe at either end? Or did it maybe just lose some legs? 1306 doesn't evenly divide by four, so that means at least one segment with a different number of legs than four. So anyone know if this is just a natural pattern for this millipede?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's called Slashdot
Not to be pedantic, but ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Not to be pedantic, but ... (Score:5)
No. Names of creatures (proper Nouns) do not typically follow metric rules but rather Greek or Latin naming conventions and language origins. Latin such as the word "mille" meaning "thousand". Like how we label 1000 years a millennium. We could for the latter use kiloyears since it is a unit of measure, but the name of a creature is not a unit of measure, it's the name of the creature.
That said we also have a name for a creature with 2^10 legs, it follows Australian naming origins, and much like the 6 legged nopes, or the 8 legged nopes, this member of the nope family would be referred to as a Fucking Nope!
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. Scandinavian languages as well as most members of the West Germanic are highly descriptive languages. The difference is that English borrows from the roots of other languages and doesn't use it's own language.
We don't call it thousandlegs or kilo legs, we call it by it's latin name. Millipede. That is quite consistent with many descriptive proper nouns:
Rhinoceros (from old Greek meaning horn nose) > Nashorn (German literal translation: Nose Horn) - neshorn (Norwegian)
Hippopotamus (from old Greek
Re: (Score:1)
In Dutch, a centipede is called "duizendpoot" (thousand-leg) and a millipede is called "miljoenpoot" (million-leg). Don't ask me why.
Re: (Score:2)
That may be a colloquialism because the translation for both centipede and millipede are both duizendpoot. I know google translate can sometimes be funny with this so I also looked it up in a dead tree translation dictionary. I couldn't find the word miljonenpoot.
Re: (Score:1)
Trust me, Dutch is my native language and I know a fair bit about arthropods, it's not a colloquialism but the official names. You can look them up on the Dutch wikipedia (just go to the English page for centipede or millipede and then click on Dutch). The articles actually mention the oddity of the naming in Dutch. And it's not "miljonenpoot" but "miljoenpoot".
Never trust Google translate.
Re: (Score:1)
(Oh, and "Dutch" is "Nederlands" in Dutch if you want to find the right link on the wikipedia languages list)
Re: (Score:2)
Never trust Google translate.
I don't, which is why I as I said I looked it up in the English-Nederlands dictionary I keep on my desk. Incidentally German is my native language and it just like Dutch use the word Tausendfüßler is used interchangeably to mean millipede and centipede, as it is in the dictionary for both languages.
Groetjes van Rotterdam.
Re: (Score:1)
So from centipedes... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
I for one welcome our Megapede overlords?
How romantic are entomologists anyway? (Score:2)
I love you,
I love you not-
Live on News 11 (Score:2)