Talk:Millipede

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This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Millipede is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on November 10, 2016.

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Date	Process	Result
August 12, 2016	Featured article candidate	Promoted

Pets?[edit]

Does anyone else think it is odd to have the statement in this article that they are good for pets? With this logic almost anything could be used as a pet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Philosopher2010 (talk • contribs) 12:35, 27 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's very odd, and entirely unsubstantiated. There shouldn't be anything in the lead that isn't dealt with later, where it can be properly referenced. I have removed the sentence. Thanks for pointing out the error. --Stemonitis (talk) 16:04, 27 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done

Petting isn't impossible in terrariums, sinca ALL animals can be kept as pets, under the condition they can live in captivity. They can be considered as the "clean-up crew" pets in aquariums. There r people having cricets, tarantulas, ants etc as pets. Yesterday, sbd gave me some plants & moss for aquarium & found sth that looks very much alike any of the 2 species of Illacme genus, I am thinking of keeping it as pet/clean-up crew, instead of getting rid of it. Anjius (talk) 09:33, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Eating millipedes?[edit]

Can you eat them? I noticed the page didnt talk about it. The only reason I ask is because this show Fringe mentioned that "millipedes are tastier than you might think", but I thought they were mildly toxic... arsenic right? I search google but never find the answer, only "what do millipedes eat" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.97.55.137 (talk) 21:21, 8 October 2012 (UTC) some cultures eat milipedes[reply]

The present article now says "The only reported usage of millipedes as food by humans comes from the Bobo people of Burkina Faso, who consume boiled, dried millipedes in tomato sauce". This is from the research article "Millipedes as Food for Humans: Their Nutritional and Possible Antimalarial Value—A First Report" by Enghoff et al. Jason Quinn (talk) 00:53, 27 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Done Its eaten in one country, that makes it edible enough. Daiyusha (talk) 06:46, 9 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thorax[edit]

The Dutch version states that millipedes lack a thorax. Did they lose it or did they never develop one in the first place? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.81.0 (talk) 00:22, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hibernation?[edit]

Do millipedes hibernate in the winter? I found a "dead" one in October or November and brought it home in a little plastic container for my son to look at. Today we were looking at it, and realized it is alive. It's been nearly half a year. Is that normal for these critters to shut down when the weather gets cold? Also, there are a couple of little pellets that weren't there when we put the millipede in there, presumably poop. Which indicates it has been metabolizing this whole time(?). I know this isn't a forum, but if millipedes can hibernate, I would think that info should be on the page. There are some websites that talk about it, but I'm not going to put any OR on the page. -66.170.209.24 (talk) 19:33, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Expansions and improvements on the way![edit]

I'm planning on updating and expanding the coverage of millipedes in the coming weeks & months, and have already begun making starts and stub articles of various taxonomic groups, including fossil taxa. I'm also working on a revised Millipede classification chart, including a "traditional" cladogram and a more recent phylogeny proposed by Sierwald & Bond (2007) based on a combined morphological and molecular dataset. I'm also going to be adding more images and diagrams to better illustrate anatomy and diversity. If anyone has suggestions or questions on things they'd like to see, post them here. Animalparty (talk) 03:11, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Update: Archipolypoda is now up, and I'm nearing completion of a revised Classification and Phylogeny Section (click to view). I've presented in a checklist style classification of orders as well as two phylogenetic hypotheses of inter-order relationships. I've also added new photos to better illustrate diversity within the millipedes. Any comments or suggestions before it goes live? Animalparty (talk) 03:20, 24 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Update: Massive additions and expansions added, with more to be added regarding ecology (habitat, diet, importance in nutrient cycling). The photos and diagrams can be tweaked as needed. Cladograms to wait until I can discuss multiple hypotheses in context rather than just arbitrarily portray one or 2 trees. --Animalparty-- (talk) 19:23, 12 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

WHY[edit]

If we have microscopic technology, why cant we count the legs? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.166.104.50 (talk) 14:00, 7 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We certainly can and do. As the article states, species have up to 750 legs. The number of legs vary based on age (millipedes start with 3 pair of legs and add more as they grow), and the number of legs in the adult stage varies between species.--Animalparty-- (talk) 20:40, 7 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

defense mechanism[edit]

It says "millipedes' primary defence mechanism is to curl into a tight coil" but isn't this limited to pill millipedes? Siuenti (talk) 14:06, 27 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Spiralling" seems to be a characteristic of millipedes, as can be seen in the paragraph here on "Movement". Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:14, 27 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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External links modified[edit]

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I have just modified one external link on Millipede. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160304032740/http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2011/01/15/largest_landdwelling_bug_of_al/ to http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2011/01/15/largest_landdwelling_bug_of_al/

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Identify subject[edit]

Hello. Could someone help identify this specimen for me please? I found 3 of them in Biyagama, Sri Lanka, and took a bunch of photos for Commons. But I have no clue how to identify it. It got only 3 pairs of legs, has a pair of glowing orbs at the rear, spirals into a hard cylinder when disturbed, and seems to have a tongue that it uses to clean the shell when idle. Kinda cool. Reh man 13:30, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Not a millipede. It could be a female lampyrid beetle or a lampyrid larva. Shyamal (talk) 14:27, 19 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Shyamal. It is in fact a subtype of lampyrid larva. Cheers! Reh man 15:47, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Five plates per segment?[edit]

The Characteristics section contains this sentence: "Millipede bodies may be flattened or cylindrical, and are composed of numerous metemeric segments, each with an exoskeleton consisting of five chitinous plates: a single plate above (the tergite), one at each side (pleurites), and a plate on the underside (sternite) where the legs attach." Thus, it says there are five plates and then lists four of them. Is one missing? Or should "five" be "four"? CodeTalker (talk) 17:56, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Incorrect unsourced etymology[edit]

With this edit, the setence: In fact its name is nothing more than a free translation of the Latin words milli (thousand) and ped (foot). was added to this lemma, without providing a source. In Latin: mille and not milli is "thousand" and pes and not ped is "foot". In the current version this sentence is phrased as: The common name "millipede" is a compound word formed from the Latin roots mille ("thousand") and ped ("foot"). Milli was corrected to mille, but ped is still incorrect. But this sentence is still unsourced. And actually a source should be given for the whole compound, not only the single parts.
The other sentence: scientific name "Diplopoda" comes from the Ancient Greek words διπλοῦς (diplous), "double" and ποδός (podos), "foot", referring to the appearance of two pairs of legs on most segments, as described below, is also unsourced and was added in this edit by Animalparty, without providing a source. There are links to Wiktionary, but as can be read here: A wiki-based dictionary that anyone can edit without editorial oversight is not reliable, and that includes Wiktionary, this is actually not the proper way of sourcing. Moreover, ποδός is not the proper nominative case and πούς had to be used instead. A source for the full compound is lacking. Wimpus (talk) 16:53, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In latin, it is common that there r 2 main forms (in nominative & genative) of a name, so, when refering to them, we say both of them.So the word for "foot" is "pes, pedis"&: from the 1st form nominative is formed, from the 2nd form, other word's types r formed, other words also, like "pedicure". The same happens with some ancient greek words, which have 2 themes, ie:"πους, ποδός". The same w/ latin happens in word synthesis in greek, the same happens (but only the nominatve is mentioned). So, to form the word "football",the 2nd form is used,to form the word "ποδόσφαιρο". So, U r right about the nominative form of the words, but the form used to form the genative (or the genative itself) is used. Anjius (talk) 08:04, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Why[edit]

Why does they smell very awful when they are smashed? 41.114.255.172 (talk) 19:43, 18 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

New discovery 1306 legs[edit]

Danish broadcaster DR has an article today. It states that Eumillipes persephone , with 1306 is the very first of these creatures to actually live up to its popular name. It has been found in an Australian drilling hole at 60 meters. As this article has a star and as I'm not really a Wikipedian, I leave the information here. The source in Danish is avaliable here https://www.dr.dk/cgi-bin/fttv1.exe/141 , but not for long. 83.250.73.248 (talk) 12:21, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. This newly discovered species is already mentioned in the article, and has its own article at Eumillipes. --Animalparty! (talk) 15:08, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This was a wonderful article on the millipede, and I learned more about this species when knowing about it being the prey of the Phengodes Laticollis beetle. Here is the article to support that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phengodes_laticollis (E.kidest)