Scientists Find a New Species of Millipede

Amber is a unique material where a lot of interesting things can be found. Scientist of the Bulgarian National Museum of Natural History discovered in a piece of amber a millipede that lived on our planet about 99 million years ago.

The arthropod found by the scientists belongs to the order Callipodida. This ancient Earth’s inhabitant has a very complex eye system structure and is the oldest representative of its order. The scientists had to introduce a new millipede sub-order for their find. It was named Burmanopetalidea. The name of the millipede itself is even more complicated: Burmanopetalum expectatum, which the latter word meaning «unexpected» in Latin.

The amazing discovery was made thanks to a private collector who kindly donated a piece of amber containing the curious creature to scientists. They immediately began to study their find using microscopy and tomography. Amber preserved the arthropod perfectly and the researchers managed to create its 3D copy. The size of the arthropod itself was a little over 8 millimeters.