Pill Millipede

This Pill millipede was found when I went to Charmadi Ghats recently. it was crossing the State Highway 64. I picked it up and curled into a nice ball. I left it on the other side and proceeded towards Mudigere in Chikmagalur District. It belongs to genus Arthrosphaera under Sphaerotheriidae family od order Sphaerotheriida.

Pill millipedes make up two orders of millipedes, often grouped together into a single superorder, Oniscomorpha. Pill millipedes are short compared to other millipedes, with only eleven to thirteen body segments, and are capable of rolling into a ball when disturbed. Evolutionary importance of Pill millipedes is that even though the northern and southern hemispherical pill millipedes evolved separately, both developed capability of rolling into a ball when disturbed. This is an example of parallel evolution, rather than homology.

The Order Glomerida is found in the Northern Hemisphere and includes species such as Glomeris marginata, the common European pill millipede. They have from twelve body segments, and lack the defensive repugnatorial glands found on many other millipedes.

The Order Sphaerotheriida is a Gondwana-distribution taxon, with around 100 species in southern Africa, Madagascar, Australasia and south-east Asia. They have thirteen body segments, and possess repugnatorial glands releasing nasty chemicals like rest of the millipede family.

Black and Yellow Flat Millepede

Even though this is a very common millipede in our garden I was not able to identify scientifically. This resembles morphologically the Apheloria genus found in America, but I doubt it belongs to that.

They do not bite humans. Generally found in leaf litter , millipedes tend to avoid light and may discharge a foul odor by secreting 2-Nitroethenylbenzenes to discourage predators. Pachydesmus crassicutis is known to produce hydrogen Cyanide gas to repel predators.

Millipedes, are arthropods that have two pairs of legs per segment (except for the first segment behind the head which does not have any appendages at all, and the next few which only have one pair of legs). Each segment that has two pairs of legs is a result of two single segments fused together as one. Most millipedes have very elongated cylindrical bodies, although some are flattened dorso-ventrally, while pill millipedes are shorter and can roll into a ball, like a pillbug.

Millipedes are detritivores and slow moving. Most millipedes eat decaying leaves and other dead plant matter, moisturising the food with secretions and then scraping it in with the jaws. However they can also be a minor garden pest, especially in greenhouses where they can cause severe damage to emergent seedlings. Signs of millipede damage include the stripping of the outer layers of a young plant stem and irregular damage to leaves and plant apices.

This class contains around 10,000 species. There are 13 orders and 115 families.

The giant African millipede (Archispirostreptus gigas) is the largest species of millipede.