Tiny New Species of Urban Millipede Discovered in Australia
Posted on March 20, 2015
A tiny new species of millipede has been discovered. The millipede is only known to inhabit the city of Launceston, Tasmania in Australia. The millipeide is about 1 centimeter long.
The millipede was discovered in a city park by local naturalists, Wade and Lisa Clarkson. They worked with Dr. Bob Mesibov, a millipede specialist at Launceston's Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, to map out the range of the species. The species was easy to find the city parks but was surprisingly absent from the woodland outside the city and other areas farther away from Launceston. The study gives the species a range of under 12 square kilometers.
The millipede has been named Tasmaniosoma anubis. The anubis name comes from the jackal-headed Egyptian god because male T. anubis have branches that resemble a jackal's snout and ears.
The researchers say T. anubis does not appear to be a threatened species. A research paper on the millipede was published here in ZooKeys.