Scientists described the new millipedes heads as Star Wars-like.
Researchers at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia recently found a new genus and five new species of millipedes in the remote jungles of Tanzania in southeast Africa. The research was conducted in the Udzungwa Mountains of Tanzania, where the team, including international collaborators, explored tree and vine growth, New York Post reported.
USC Professor Andy Marshall likened the appearance of these millipedes' heads to characters from the iconic Star Wars series.
He mentioned that each of the recently found millipedes had roughly 200 legs and were several centimeters long. Notably, the largest African millipedes can grow up to 35 centimeters, or nearly 14 inches, long.
''The millipedes will help us to determine two very different theories on the role of vines on forest recovery – whether the vines are like bandages protecting a wound or 'parasitoids' choking the forest. We record millipedes of all sizes during our fieldwork to measure forest recovery because they are great indicators of forest health, but we didn't realise the significance of these species until the myriapodologists had assessed our specimens,'' Mr. Marshall said.
''It's remarkable that so many of these new species did not appear in earlier collecting of millipedes from the same area, but we were still hoping for something new,'' he added.
The discovery of the new millipede genus and species, according to Mr Marshall, shows how much more there is to learn about tropical forests.
The new genus and species were officially described recently in the European Journal of Taxonomy in a paper titled 'A mountain of millipedes'. The five new species are Attemsostreptus leptoptilos, Attemsostreptus julostriatus, Attemsostreptus magombera, Attemsostreptus leptoptilos, and Udzungwastreptus marianae, according to the USC. The specimens are now in the Danish Museum of Natural History at the University of Copenhagen.
The project, funded by the Australian Research Council, aims to understand global forest recovery from heavy disturbance.