EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

An "Earth Loving Form"

Soil Centipede (Arenophilus sp.), Family Geophilidae
Hoxworth Springs, Coconino National Forest, Arizona, USA

Explanation:  Here in central Arizona, just south of Flagstaff, is the wonderful Coconino National Forest, of nearly 1.9 million acres of Ponderosa pine forest, canyons, cliffs, rock outcrops, and much more ... including some open moist-soil grassland, where I found this lone digger, a soil centipede.  I discovered this individual as I was turning over down logs and rocks (and always replacing them, afterward).

Soil centipedes play beneficial key ecological functions, burrowing through, and aerating, the upper soil layers.  This improves soil quality for use by plants and other organisms.   

Soil centipedes can have upward ot two hunded legs (!) and are generally poorly known ecologically, as they spend most of their lives underground, living up to several years, feeding on insects and small invertebrates.  

They are arthropods, belonging to Order Geophilomorpha, Superfamily Geophilodea, and Family Geophilidae.  Whew!  Lots of "geos" here, why?

Well, the name derives from geo meaning Earth, philo meaning loving, and, in the Order name, morpha meaning form.  And thus the title of this week's EPOW episode:  "Earth Loving Form."

Indeed they are.  
  

Information:
     Borror, D. J., D. M. DeLong, and C. A. Triplehorn. 1976. An introduction to the study of insects. Fourth edition. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York. 852 pp.