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It's Got Legs, and Knows How to Use Them
The New York Times
By HENRY FOUNTAIN
Published: June 13, 2006
The millipede has a credibility problem. Despite the name, no millipede has a thousand feet. Most of them have a paltry 300 or fewer.
Then plenipes scooted off, never to be seen again. Until now. A doctoral student at East Carolina University, Paul E. Marek, has rediscovered it.
Mr. Marek, who is studying Appalachian millipedes for his dissertation, had heard about plenipes. Last Thanksgiving, while visiting his family in California, he and his brother decided to look for it. The original description of the species from the 1920's had included only a vague location. But Mr. Marek used his knowledge of millipedes, and of Central California ecology, and found it in an afternoon in San Benito County, east of Monterey Bay. (He is not disclosing the exact location for fear that millipede-seekers may harm the habitat.) The rediscovery was reported last week in Nature.
Of Mr. Marek's dozen specimens, one has 666 legs. Plenipes embryos have only six legs; the creature adds four-legged segments as it grows, continuing to do so even after sexual maturity.
Like other millipedes, plenipes displays extraordinary coordination when walking. The legs lift up, move forward and set down in synchronized waves, with three or four waves at any time. The only known video of plenipes in motion can be seen here. |
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