Marine Centipedes

Myriapods have a long history, stretching all the way back into the Palaeozoic, though they would not become truly successful until the Age of Dinosaurs. That success seems to have been repeated on Ryl Madol, attested to by the island’s diverse fauna of millipedes and centipedes found nowhere else on Earth.

Among these are the marine centipedes, Platychilopodidae, which inhabit the waters surrounding the island. Living their whole lives at sea, their bodies have become streamlined, their legs became flattened flippers and their caudal legs form something that could be called a tail fluke. They even evolved so-called blood lungs inside their tracheae, a trait otherwise only known from aquatic insect larvae.

Chilocaris venefecus is one member of this family. Its preferred prey are other arthropods and small agnathan fish, such as neothelodonts, which it captures with its large jaws and injects with venom. It itself is preyed on by large fish and marine reptiles and amphibians. As many would-be explorers have painfully found out, if the “marinopede” cannot defend itself with its venom, it will use its “tail-fluke” as a pincer.

Among the Platychilopodidae, C. venefecus is one of the smaller species, growing about 20 centimetres long. It is far outdone by the horrifically large Con Rit, Cetioscolopendra aeliani.