Technologies

First ‘true’ millipede with over 1,000 legs discovered deep below Earth’s surface

Emerging from a drill hole in Western Australia, a new record holder for leggiest animal on the planet.

Around the world, more than 7,000 species of millipede crawl across forest floors and garden beds, pairs of legs pumping as they move through soil in search of food. The limbs can number in the dozens to the hundreds, and while the term «millipede» translates to «a thousand feet,» the record number of millipede movers has stood at around 750 legs since the description of a Californian species back in 2006.

«Millipede» has been a misnomer. A thousand feet? A myth. Until today.

«All of the introductory textbooks will have to be rewritten because there is a true millipede now,» says Dennis Black, a millipede expert and adjunct research fellow at LaTrobe University in Australia.

The «true» millipede has been dubbed Eumillipes persephone. The new species was discovered in a borehole, drilled as part of a Western Australian mining operation, almost 200 feet (60 meters) below the Earth’s surface. It’s the first millipede to live up to its multi-legged moniker with a staggering 1,306 legs.

«That’s just an amazing number,» says Paul Marek, an entomologist at Virginia Tech and lead author of a paper documenting the find, published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports. «I’m still in disbelief.»

Named for Persephone, the Greek goddess of the underworld, the spindly, brown crawler is just over 3.7 inches long and about as thin as a USB cable. The millipede also lives much deeper in the soil than any previously known species, and the story of its discovery makes for a tale of great luck and incredible irony.

Portal to the underworld

The first person to set eyes on the Persephone millipede was Bruno Buzatto, principal biologist at Bennelongia Environmental Consultants in Western Australia. The group specializes in subterranean surveys of animal life and is often contracted by mining companies looking to perform environmental assessments as they search for resources. The mining companies drill the holes that, Buzatto says, are like «portals» into the subterranean world.

To assess what life lurks in the underworld beneath our feet, Buzatto sends «traps» through the portals. He takes a plastic tube with a few holes in the side and fills it with leaf litter. He then drops it down one of the drill holes and leaves it there. Life in the soil is attracted to the litter, hoping to fill its stomach. When Buzatto pulls the trap out a month or two later, it’s often teeming with life.

Buzatto says these traps routinely catch new creatures, some of which have never been seen before. «About 80 to 90% of what we pull up is undescribed species,» he says. So it was no surprise to him when, in August 2020, he laid eyes on an unusual animal he’d never seen before. In a haul plucked from a hole in the Eastern Goldfields Province of Western Australia, Buzatto found an extremely long millipede. «I realized it was a very special animal,» he says.

A few years earlier, Buzatto had been flicking through a research paper about Illacme plenipes, a Californian species of millipede with the record for most number of legs. The lead author of that study was Paul Marek, an entomologist at Virginia Tech. Buzatto shot him an email, attaching a picture of his find.

«I did a quick count and it had 818 legs,» Marek says. «I was pretty pumped about that.»

To make it official, Marek needed to see the specimens, place them under a powerful microscope and analyze their DNA. Buzatto, in collaboration with the Western Australian Museum, shipped specimens to Marek’s lab in the US. In total, the team was able to find and analyze five millipedes, with one female taking out the legs record (1,306) and a male falling just short of the mythic 1,000-leg mark at 998.

Why so many legs?

The Persephone millipede lives in a world with no light and, likely, limited food. Evolution has built it for this world with unique characteristics – similar to, but distinct from, Illacma plenipes.

When Marek was able to look at the Persephone under the microscope, he noticed many similarities to the Illacme plenipes, a millipede that lives halfway across the world, separated by the Pacific Ocean. However, it also had some bizarre features. «It was nothing like other members of the family,» Marek says.

For one, it had no eyes, which is unique in this order of animals. Two, it was unpigmented.

Both changes make sense. Living in the underworld, eyes aren’t all that important. You don’t need to detect changes in the light. Instead, the Persephone has huge antennae. Pigmentation loss occurs in a wide variety of animals that live in places without light, such as caves, but the evolutionary pressures underlying pigmentation loss are still being fully elucidated.

All of the characteristics helped Marek and the team place the species in the order Polyzoniida, distant relatives of the previous leggiest record holder, and suggested the Persephone and Illacma plenipes are an example of convergent evolution – where two distantly related species evolve similar physiological traits to adapt to their niches.

But why does a creature need so many legs?

The answer isn’t all that surprising. Legs are for locomotion. They allow you to move around the world. The researchers haven’t seen live specimens moving around in their home underworld, but they can draw on insights from similar species in nature. Based on earlier studies, Marek and the team suggest the super-elongation and short legs help to burrow through the underworld, providing additional propulsive force as it moves in a telescoping motion.

«The combination of these characteristics really speaks to the importance of being able to traverse deep underground, probably as a result of a limited set of nutrients in the place that it lives,» Marek said.

Minefield

There is a great irony to the discovery, one that several of the authors have wrestled with.

Collecting and describing new species from deep within the soil hasn’t been done to a great extent in Western Australia. There could be dozens of species living underneath our feet that we have never seen before. Before August 2020, no one had ever seen the Persephone millipede. No one knew it existed. And it would have remained that way, if not for Buzatto’s drill hole trap.

«I don’t think we would have ever known about this had it not been for the mineral exploration that’s occurring,» says Dennis Black, the millipede expert from LaTrobe and a co-author on the study. Buzatto notes the mining company, in this instance, paid for the surveys.

At the same time, the main threat to the survival of the species, at least as far as we know right now, would be those same mining operations. If a rich resource was discovered in the same mining exploration what would win out? The millipede? Fortunately for the Persephone, Buzatto notes the area it was discovered in isn’t one in which the mining company is looking to target.

But it raises interesting questions about how to protect species like the Persephone we don’t even know about, so-called «cryptic» organisms contributing to ecosystems we know nothing about. These ecosystems, Persephone shows, are yielding incredible discoveries and preventing further loss of biodiversity. To prevent an anonymous extinction, scientists need to know what’s out there, including deep beneath the surface of the Western Australian desert.

«There couldn be a heck of a lot living over that vast area,» Black says. «We simply don’t have a clue.»

If we did, there’s a chance the Persephone too will be dethroned. Marek says there’s «some correlation» between the depth at which these creatures are found and the number of legs they have. Exploring even deeper below the surface might mean running into another god of the underworld, leggier than we’d ever imagined.

«It’s possible there are longer ones down there,» Black says. «What I want to do is win the lotto, buy some drilling equipment and spend my retirement drilling holes.»

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Monday, May 19

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for May 19.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword is pretty easy. 5-Across, «one for whom every day is Boxing Day,» stumped me because I really wanted the answer to have something to do with cats. (Spoiler: It did not.) Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

The Mini Crossword is just one of many games in the Times’ games collection. If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get at those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Network satirized on «30 Rock,» for short
Answer: NBC

4A clue: Sport played on horseback
Answer: POLO

5A clue: One for whom every day is Boxing Day?
Answer: MOVED

6A clue: Like correct letters in Wordle
Answer: GREEN

7A clue: Blend together
Answer: MELD

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: «Invisible Man» or «Little Women»
Answer: NOVEL

2D clue: Run in the wash
Answer: BLEED

3D clue: What bourbon whiskey is primarily made from
Answer: CORN

4D clue: Tiny hole in the skin
Answer: PORE

5D clue: Longtime movie studio acquired by Amazon in 2022
Answer: MGM

How to play more Mini Crosswords

The New York Times Games section offers a large number of online games, but only some of them are free for all to play. You can play the current day’s Mini Crossword for free, but you’ll need a subscription to the Times Games section to play older puzzles from the archives.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for May 19, #238

Hints and answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, No. 238, for May 19.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Connections: Sports Edition might be tough today if, like me, you don’t know what «loge» means. Read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Brag.

Green group hint: Where’s my seat?

Blue group hint: City that never sleeps.

Purple group hint: Opposite of go.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Boast

Green group: Stadium seating sections

Blue group: New York Knicks

Purple group: ____ stop

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is boast. The four answers are crow, gloat, grandstand and showboat.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is stadium seating sections. The four answers are bleacher, loge, suites and upper deck.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is New York Knicks. The four answers are Bridges, Hart, McBride and Towns.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ____ stop. The four answers are back, jump, pit and short.

Technologies

Blade Runner: 18-Rotor «Volocopter» Moving from Concept to Prototype

It may look "nutty" and like a "blender," but the designers say the craft could challenge helicopters

Inventor and physicist Thomas Senkel created an Internet sensation with the October 2011 video of his maiden—and only—test flight of a spidery proof-of-concept 16-rotor helicopter dubbed Multicopter 1. Now the maker of the experimental personal aviation craft, the European start-up e-volo, is back with a revised «volocopter» design that adds two more rotors, a serial hybrid drive and long-term plans for going to 100 percent battery power.

The new design calls for 1.8-meter, 0.5-kilogram carbon-fiber blades, each paired with a motor. They are arrayed around a hub in two concentric circles over a boxy one- or two-person cockpit.

After awarding the volocopter concept a Lindbergh Prize for Innovation in April, Yolanka Wulff, executive director of The Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation, admitted the idea of the multi-blade chopper at first seems «nutty.» Looking beyond the novel appearance, however, she says, e-volo’s concept excels in safety, energy efficiency and simplicity, which were the bases of the prize.

All three attributes arrive thanks largely to evolo’s removal of classic helicopter elements. First, the energy-robbing high-mass main rotor, transmission, tail boom and tail rotor are gone. The enormous blades over a normal chopper’s cabin create lift, but their mass creates a high degree of stress and wear on the craft. And the small tail rotor, perched vertically out on a boom behind the cabin, keeps the helicopter’s body from spinning in the opposite direction as the main blades, but it also eats up about 30 percent of a helicopter’s power.

The volocopter’s multiple rotor blades individually would not create the torque that a single large rotor produces, and they offer redundancy for safety. Hypothetically, the volocopter could fly with a few as 12 functioning rotors, as long as those rotors were not all clustered together on one side, says Senkel, the aircraft’s co-inventor and e-volo’s lead construction engineer.

Without the iconic two-prop configuration, the craft would be lighter, making it more fuel efficient and reducing the physical complexity of delivering power to the top and rear blades from a single engine. Nor would the volocopter need an energy-hungry transmission. In fact, «there will be no mechanical connection between the gas engine and the blades,» Senkel says. That means fewer points of energy loss and more redundancy for safety.

E-volo’s design eliminates the dependence on a single source of power to the blades. As a serial-hybrid vehicle, the volocopter would have a gas-fueled engine, in this case an engine capable of generating 50- to 75 kilowatts, typical of ultralight aircraft. Rather than mechanically drive the rotors, the engine would generate power for electric motors as well as charge onboard lithium batteries. Should it fail, the batteries are expected to provide enough backup power so the craft could make a controlled landing.

Whereas helicopters navigate by changing the pitch of the main and tail rotor blades, the volocopter’s maneuverability will depend on changing the speed of individual rotors. Although more complex, it is more precise in principle to control a craft using three to six redundant microcontrollers (in case one or more fails) interpreting instructions from a pilot using a game console–like joystick—instead of rudder pedals, a control stick and a throttle.

Wulff’s first impression about the volocopter’s design is not uncommon. E-volo’s computer-animated promotional videos of a gleaming white, carbon-fiber and fiberglass craft beneath a thatch of blades recall the many-winged would-be flying machines of the late 19th century. This point is not lost on Senkel.

«I understand these skeptical opinions,» he says. «The design concept looks like a blender. But we really are making a safe flying machine.»

That would be progress in itself. Multicopter 1 looked like something from an especially iffy episode of MacGyver, complete with landing gear that involved a silver yoga ball. Senkel rode seated amid all those rotors powered only by lithium batteries. Multicopter 1 generated an average of 20 kilowatts for hovering and was aloft for just a few minutes.

There’s a reason why the experimental craft flew briefly and only once.Senkel describes that first craft as «glued and screwed together.» Seated on the same platform as the spinning blades, he says, «I was aware of the fact that I will be dead, maybe. Besides, we showed that the concept works. What do we win if we fly it twice?» he asks rhetorically.

Other than putting the pilot safely below the blades, the revised volocopter design would operate largely the same as the initial prototype. The design calls for three to six redundant accelerometers and gyroscopes to measure the volocopter’s position and orientation, creating a feedback loop that gives the craft stability and makes it easier to fly, Senkel says.

The volocopter’s revised prototype under construction could debut as soon as next spring. The first production models, available in perhaps three years, are expected to fly for at least an hour at speeds exceeding 100 kilometers per hour and a minimum altitude of about 2,000 meters, still far shy of standard helicopter’s normal operating altitude of about 3,000 meters. «This could change our lives, but I don’t expect anything like that for 10 years,» Senkel adds.

Given that most of the technology needed to build the volocopter is already available, «this idea is fairly easy to realize,» says Carl Kühn, managing director of e-volo partner Smoto GmbH, a company that integrates electric drive systems and related components.

Like Senkel, Kühn has modest short-term expectations despite his repeated emphasis on the standard nature of the technology involved. «I guess that e-volo will have [a prototype] aircraft in three years that can do the job—that it will lift one or two persons from one point to another,» he says.

The biggest immediate limitations appear to be regulatory. For instance, European aviation regulators consider any electrical system greater than 60 volts to be high voltage and regulate such systems more aggressively, Kühn says. As a result, the volocopter will operate below that threshold. The craft will also need to weigh no more than 450 kilograms to remain in the ultralight category, which is likewise subject to fewer government aviation regulations, according to Senkel.

The Lindbergh Foundation’s Wulff says the organization’s judges felt e-volo had «a greater than 50 percent chance of succeeding, or they wouldn’t have given them the innovation award.» Asked if she would line up to fly one someday, she says, «I sure would. It looks very compelling to me.»