New Species Discovered in Sequoia NP

[maverick]

SEKI NP:

I wanted to let you know about a new species of millipede discovered in a cave in Sequoia National Park. It was announced last week after the discovery was published in the journal ZooKeys. Some interesting facts:
The millipede has 414 legs, 200 poison glands, and four penises.
The species, named Illacme tobini (pronounced ill-ack-me toe-bin-i), is named after National Park Service cave biologist Ben Tobin (Ben now works at Grand Canyon NP)
The species is related to one discovered 150 miles to the west in San Benito County. That millipede has 750 legs.
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks have 275 caves with a cumulative length of 35 miles. The discovery was made in a cave near Crystal Cave, the only cave open to the public (weather permitting, tours run through November and will start up late May 2017)
This discovery shows us that we are still learning about our planet and its biodiversity. This helps us prevent anonymous extinction, in which a species goes extinct before we even know about its role in the ecosystem, its potential benefits to humanity, and its beauty.
"This is an amazing discovery," added Christy Brigham, Chief of Resource Management and Science at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. "The fact that we are still finding new species in a place as well-studied as Sequoia National Park just goes to show that there is a lot of undiscovered biodiversity out there."

The lead investigator for the paper is Paul Marek, Asst. Professor in the Dept. of Entomology at Virginia Tech. He can be reached at (540) 231-5653 or pmarek@vt.edu

The press release and three photos can be found here: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases ... 102116.php