Entry-level “enjoyable truth” commenters like to say that tomatoes are technically a fruit. Intermediate obscure information lovers, in the meantime, will know bananas are technically berries.
True trivia followers, however, will know that strawberries are neither a berry nor even a fruit and that the “seeds” on the surface are literally the fruit, every of which accommodates the precise seeds.
However not even essentially the most profitable pub quiz members I do know have been conscious that technically, millipedes (and centipedes) aren’t bugs.
As an alternative, the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) says they belong to a bunch known as myriapods, a kind of arthropod.
What’s the distinction?
Arthropods account for 84% of animal life on Earth, the web encyclopedia Brittanica says.
They’re distinguished by their jointed skeletal protecting produced from chitin, which is bonded to a protein.
“The physique is often segmented, and the segments bear paired jointed appendages, from which the identify arthropod (jointed toes) is derived,” Britannica provides.
Arthropods may be bugs, however the pure history-based Australian Museum in Sydney says: “Centipedes and millipedes will not be bugs as they’ve greater than six legs.”
The nonprofit conservation, training, and advocacy organisation Nationwide Wildlife Federation (NWF) agrees that millipedes “will not be bugs — they’re truly extra carefully associated to lobsters, shrimp, and crayfish”.
What?
Likening a millipede to the type of sea creatures I prefer to see on my plate is fairly stomach-churning, however the onslaught of recent information doesn’t finish there.
The NWF says that some millipedes within the genus Motyxia are bioluminescent, which means they develop at nighttime.
Big African millipedes can develop to 30cm lengthy (oh, good), and although their identify (“milli” which means “thousand”, and “pede” which means “toes”) may recommend in any other case, they usually solely have between 40 and 400 legs.
Nonetheless, the RHS factors out that “millipedes feed on decaying natural matter and are a part of a wholesome backyard ecosystem”, including they “shouldn’t be managed.”
Seems like I’ll simply need to dwell with these odd little prawn bugs for the sake of my soil…
