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6h ago

Millipede Tree of Life Completed, Origins Pushed Back to 460 Million Years

DNA from two previously unsampled groups with fossil calibrations resolves their placement in the millipede family tree.

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Interesting Engineering
To date, 14,232 millipede species have been described, with at least as many still awaiting discovery. Image credit: Vasquez-Valverde et al., doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2026.05.035.

Overview

  • A Virginia Tech–led team published a Current Biology paper in June 2026 that builds the first complete evolutionary tree for all living millipede orders.
  • The fossil-calibrated genomic analysis indicates millipedes likely originated about 460 million years ago, roughly 35 million years before the oldest known millipede fossils.
  • Field expeditions to Los Tuxtlas, Mexico, and the Canary Islands recovered Siphoniulus neotropicus and Hirudicryptus canariensis, whose DNA allowed the team to place Siphoniulida and show Siphonocryptida is nested within an existing lineage rather than a separate order.
  • The new tree dates the origin of millipede chemical defenses to about 260 million years ago, giving a clearer timeline for when these animals evolved their defensive chemistry.
  • The study combined hundreds of genes from 82 species, 29 fossil calibrations, terabytes of genomic data and major computing resources, and it refines how early detritivores shaped terrestrial ecosystems and points to many more undiscovered millipede species.