Flat-Backed Millipede

Oxidus gracilis

Description:

I found this multi-legged insect underneath a board which I flipped over to try and find some creepy crawlies. I think I can count 19 body segments, including the head and butt (sorry I don't know the scientific name I'll look it up later). Possible centipede 60 legs, or 30 on each side aka 15 pairs of 2 on each side So at first thought I believed this guy to be a centipede, because he really doesn't have that many legs, but then I was doing some research and discovered that a trait of centipedes is to have 2 legs per segment, 1 on each side. However, with this specimen, he's got 4 legs per segment with 2 on each side. That classifies him as a millipede. Age old stereotype that centipedes have 100 legs and millipedes have 1000 may not be completely accurate! http://www.bugs.com/bugs_database/other_... check it out! I read that the first three segments of a millipede in fact only have 1 pair of legs, in contrast to the rest which have 2 pairs. One can actually observe that if they look closely at the fourth picture there. http://bugguide.net/node/view/5239 This one is called the Flat-Backed Millipede (Oxidus gracilis) seems like a viable option for identification, the only thing off is the color. The other guy seems to be a bit darker. However, that could easily just be the picture. One should never make an identification based SOLELY on the picture. I tend to do that a lot though :3 sorry, I don't have too many resources available http://bugguide.net/node/view/26414/bgim... Most of them look like this guy. I think a few of them might be misplaced though because they don't match the other pictures. I'm going to settle on the ID, it's the only option I've found that seems to fit.