Millipedes (6441)

Millipedes are many segmented, wormlike arthropods found throughout Pennsylvania. They usually go unnoticed under leaves, rocks, boards and other locations that provide a cool, damp habitat. Occasionally, millipedes may enter structures in great numbers causing alarm. Fortunately, they do no damage (other than being a nuisance) and cannot long survive the dry atmosphere found within most buildings.

Millipedes can be easily identified by their two pairs of legs per body segment (except for the first three segments that have one pair each). Because of the many legs, they are often called ‘thousand-leggers’. Sometimes they are called ‘wire worms’ because of their cylindrical wire-like body shape. However, they should not be confused with the beetle larvae known as wireworms (family Elateridae: the click beetles) which have only six legs, feed on grass roots, are typically a dark yellow color and will not crawl about on the soil surface. Most of the millipedes that people come in contact with are a dark brown color, approximately an inch long and one sixteenth of an inch in diameter (Fig. 1). Most have a hard outer skin and will curl into a spiral upon death.

For more information, please visit this Penn State Fact Sheet.

Prntable PDF file

Penn State Entomology Department

For more information on this subject, Please visit the College of Agricultural Sciences Publications Web site.

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