In search of millipedes, we’re dismantling this fantastically rotten log in La Selva, Costa Rica [left to right: Petra Sierwald, curator at the Field Museum; Jackson Means, grad student in the lab; Jason Bond, professor at Auburn University; Paul Marek, PI in the lab; Carlos Viquez, curator at the National Biodiversity Institute, INBio, Costa Rica] Photo by Bill Shear, professor at Hamden-Sydney College.
The decaying log held scores of millipedes, including sphaeriodesmids, siphonophorids, pyrgodesmids, spirostreptids, chelodesmids, polyxenids, and glomeridesmids.
Bill and Jackson with a portion of the millipede collection at Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad, INBio. (Jackson is hatching up a plan to bring a 20 gallon bucket of unsorted Berlese samples back to Blacksburg with him.)
INBio is a national institute (funded privately) dedicated to making an inventory of Costa Rica’s natural heritage, promoting conservation and education, and identifying biological and chemical properties of plants and animals potentially useful for pharmaceuticals, industry, biomimicry, and other applications.
