The Hidden Life Beneath our Feet: Millipedes, Centipedes and the other Leaf Litter Organisms (Science Talk)

Science Talk

The Hidden Life Beneath our Feet: Millipedes, Centipedes and the other Leaf Litter Organisms

Guest Speaker: Dr. Jackson Means, VMNH Assistant Curator of Recent Invertebrate

This is a Pay What You Will event.

This presentation will introduce audiences to one of the largest and most poorly known groups of animals in the world, the Myriapoda. Myriapods include millipedes, centipedes, and their even less well-known relatives the Symphyla and Pauropoda.

Virginia, especially the western half, is home to one of the worldwide centers of biodiversity for millipedes and as such represents a uniquely valuable area for millipede-based research. In this presentation, Dr. Means will explain the habitats millipedes can be found in, as well as their biology, ecology, and evolution, and show off some of the more common groups of millipedes Virginians are likely to encounter when in their gardens or out on a hike.

Dr. Jackson Means attained his doctorate in entomology at Virginia Tech. His research focuses on the systematics and taxonomy of millipedes, especially those found in the Americas. To-date, Dr. Means has described over 70 species and multiple genera, primarily from the Appalachians and greater Eastern United States but also from Mexico, Brazil, and Chile. His goal as a taxonomist is to reveal the hidden diversity of life beneath our feet, and through doing so mitigate anonymous extinction, where a species goes extinct before it is ever studied by the scientific community. Dr. Means has also recently become enamored with arachnids, and is working on a catalog of all of the spiders found in Virginia. If you ever have any questions about millipedes, spiders, or Virginian biodiversity in general he is happy to answer emails.

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