The tiny arthropod was found just underground by naturalists at a Southern California hiking area – near a freeway, a Starbucks and an Oakley sunglasses store.
About the length of a paperclip but skinny as pencil lead, it’s translucent and sinuous like a jellyfish tentacle. The creature burrows four inches below ground, secretes unusual chemicals and is blind, relying on hornlike antennas protruding from its head to find its way.
Under a microscope, the millipede with its 486 legs and helmet-like head resembles a creature in a Hollywood monster film.
“It’s amazing to think these millipedes are crawling in the inner cracks and crevices between little pieces of rock below our feet in Los Angeles”, said entomologist Paul Marek of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute. He was part of the research team that included scientists from West Virginia University, and the University of California, Berkeley.
Their findings on the species, whose scientific name is Illacme socal, were published June 21 in the journal ZooKeys, issue 1167, pp 265-291.
iNaturalist, a citizen naturalist app, led Marek to the discovery. Naturalists Cedric Lee and James Bailey posted the critter they found when they were out collecting slugs at Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park in nearby Orange County four years ago. The team used DNA sequencing and analysis to prove it was indeed a new species.
Scientists estimate 10 million animal species live on Earth, but only one million have been discovered.
“What we don’t know is far more than what we know in terms of insect species and small creatures around the world”, said Brian Brown, curator of entomology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
After having led a four-year research project called BioSCAN, which planted insect traps throughout backyards in the city, Brown estimates 20,000 species of insects inhabit Los Angeles alone, both discovered and undiscovered.
But he worries about threats to native species such as climate change and invasive species.
“It really is going to take a lot more work and effort to try and save, try and document the species before they all go extinct”, he said.
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