#anthrosphaeridae

[herpsandbirds]

Giant Emerald Pill Millipede (Zoosphaerium neptunus), family Anthrosphaeridae, Madagascar

Photos: Chien C. Lee, Enrique Lopez-Tapia, Thomas J. Astle

[herpsandbirds]

Swarming behaviour and mass occurrences in the world’s largest giant pill-millipede species, Zoosphaerium neptunus, on Madagascar and its implication for conservation efforts (Diplopoda: Sphaerotheriida)

December 2010

Thomas Wesener, Kai Schütte

ABSTRACT

The first records of mass occurrences (swarming behaviour) in giant pill - millipedes, order Sphaerotheriida, are reported from Madagascar. Swarming behaviour in the order Sphaerotheriida seems to be restricted to a single of more than sixty described Malagasy species, Zoosphaerium neptunus (Butler, 1872), which is the world’s largest known giant pill millipede. Rolled up individuals can be up to the size of a baseball, tennis ball or small orange, but only females reach this giant size, males being smaller than a ping pong ball. Nine occurrences of such Z. neptunus swarms were analyzed based on actual specimens, video or photographic evidence collected by other researchers, dating back as far as 1892. One additional swarm, comprising several thousand individuals was examined in detail, with 260 randomly collected specimens being dissected and measured...

Read paper here:

(PDF) Swarming behaviour and mass occurrences in the world’s largest giant pill-millipede species, Zoosphaerium neptunus, on Madagascar and its implication for conservation efforts (Diplopoda: Sphaerotheriida)

[herpsandbirds]

Giant Emerald Pill Millipede (Zoosphaerium neptunus), family Anthrosphaeridae, Alaotra-Mangoro, Toamasina, Madagascar

Photograph by Julien Renoult