{"id":138895,"date":"2026-01-31T16:36:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T16:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/138895\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T16:36:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T16:36:08","slug":"these-rare-giant-millipedes-only-exist-in-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/138895\/","title":{"rendered":"These rare, giant millipedes only exist in Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter\ud83d\udca1<\/p>\n

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week.<\/p>\n

While Florida is perhaps best known for its beaches and wetlands<\/a>, its landscape hosts other notable features: ridges<\/a>. Millions of years ago, sea levels were higher than they are today, and these elevated areas of land became like islands. The species living on these ridges evolved in complete isolation<\/a>, so the area is now packed with native animals that don\u2019t exist anywhere else.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The earliest and tallest of these unique systems is the Lake Wales Ridge in central Florida. It\u2019s home to the Florida scrub millipede<\/a> (Floridobolus penneri), one of North America\u2019s biggest millipedes<\/a>. This rare and little-known arthropod is unique to the Sunshine State, and can reach up to four inches in length. It moves with over 100 legs and mostly lives underground and comes out at night.<\/p>\n

Apparently, they\u2019re also picky when it comes to making babies. At least, the ones in the care of Anne Sawl<\/a>\u2014a graduate student in conservation biology<\/a> at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg\u2014seemed to be. It wasn\u2019t until she put them in a kiddie pool with plants from the ridge that she found an offspring.<\/p>\n

\"aGraduate student Anne Sawl cares for dozens of rare Florida scrub millipedes in a USF St. Petersburg lab, where the arthropods recently reproduced and their offspring are now being raised. Image: University of South Florida St. Petersburg. <\/p>\n

\u201cOne day, I was moving dirt near the roots of the plant and noticed a tiny white speck,\u201d Sawl explained in a statement<\/a>. \u201cIt caught my eye. I picked it up and realized it was a baby millipede. After so much trial and error in the lab, I was completely flabbergasted that they had reproduced.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe the millipedes weren\u2019t used to so much attention. After all, they hadn\u2019t been scientifically surveyed in almost 20 years. Within this context, Sawl\u2019s research into the Florida scrub millipede\u2019s population numbers and spread is providing new information that could aid\u00a0 future conservation endeavors..\u00a0<\/p>\n

The endemic species is believed to be threatened by major habitat loss. Researchers estimate that human activity has destroyed 85 percent of the Lake Wales Ridge\u2019s natural habitat from before humans settled there, according to Sawl.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"severalAbout 32 Florida scrub millipedes were born and are now thriving in their lab habitat on the St. Pete campus. \u00a0Image: University of South Florida St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnne has taken a group of animals most people overlook and produced multiple chapters of publishable research with brand new information,\u201d added\u00a0 Deby Cassill, a professor of integrative biology at the University of South Florida and Sawl\u2019s adviser. \u201cMillipedes might not be glamorous, but they are ecological champions in these fragile habitats.\u201d<\/p>\n

Florida scrub millipedes play an important role in nutrient recycling<\/a>\u2014or rather, their digestive system does. They turn their plant meals into a crucial source of nutrients, according to Sawl. Yes, we\u2019re talking about their poop.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, Sawl has also found that these unique, many-legged arthropods prefer mushrooms and fungi instead of some plant material researchers previously thought. They might just be picky animals through and through.<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"products\t\t\t<\/p>\n

2025 PopSci Best of What\u2019s New<\/p>\n

The 50 most important innovations of the year<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0<\/p>\n

Margherita is a trilingual freelance science writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Get the Popular Science daily newsletter\ud83d\udca1 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. While Florida…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[67684,28,30,29,115],"class_list":{"0":"post-138895","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-bugs","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-headlines","11":"tag-florida-news","12":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}