The video: The world's leggiest creature has long been an enigma thought to be extinct. But now, scientists at the University of Arizona have released the first video of the millipede illacme plenipes, a tiny yet "strikingly complex" bug with a record-breaking 750 legs. This rare millipede, which lives exclusively under a particular type of sandstone boulder on the outskirts of Silicon Valley, has a translucent exoskeleton that produces its very own "clothing" in the form of silk body hairs. And thanks to its hundreds of legs, the inch-long bug can slither around in the dirt and burrow underground with astonishing ease. Take a look at this strange bug:
The reaction: "If, while watching this video, you thought of the classic arcade/cell phone/graphing calculator game Snake, you're not the only one," says Joseph Stromberg at Smithsonian. Indeed, the illacme plenipes "basically looks like a tiny thread," and only revealed itself to be incredibly complex under a microscope, says the study's lead author Paul Marek. "There's really nothing else like it in the Western Hemisphere."
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