Africa Wild

Toko wrote:Can I have a fat bonus for compiling the mammals list????

nan wrote:Millipede or Shongololo



They fall under the class Diplopoda and family Spirostreptrornorpha. Millipedes are arthropods, which means that they are invertebrates that have an exoskeleton. Their bodies are divided into segments, mostly two fused together, and each segment sports a couple of pairs of legs (as opposed to the 1 pair per body segment found in centipedes). Those segments with two pairs are called diplosomites. On the segments immediately behind the head, there are only single pairs of legs and these are known as somites. The last few segments, near the anus, have no legs at all. Millipedes don’t actually have 1000 legs as their name suggests, but sport between 36 to 400. They also curl themselves up into a coil to protect their vulnerable underside, known as the sternite or sternum.
They mostly eat decaying plant matter, sometimes ants.
Shongololo’s moult as they grow, and one often sees dull grey empty shells lying on the ground. With each new exoskeleton they acquire more segments and more legs. They lay between 10 and 300 eggs and the hatchlings are perfect little replica’s of the adults except that they only have three pairs of legs initially.