Giant Millipedes On This Island Are At Risk Of Being Decapitated Every May, But The Reason Why This Happens Remains A Mystery
Each year, around the end of May, giant millipedes on Tuckernuck Island are at risk of being decapitated.
As summer progresses, more and more of the millipedes turn up headless on trails and roads. The strangest part is that no one knows what’s making the insects lose their heads.
In 2009, researchers from the Maria Mitchell Association tried to figure out the answer to this question, but they weren’t able to come up with any conclusive results.
If scientists can determine what the culprit may be, it could change the way that animal behavior is being understood.
Locals have been reporting the decapitated millipedes as far back as the 1940s. The millipedes are a good source of food for many creatures, but eating them safely can be a challenge.
Their bodies are packed with poisonous glands except for their head and first five body segments. So, whatever animal might be eating the millipedes has likely figured out how to avoid the poisonous parts.
One of the first scientists to look into the Tuckernuck millipedes was Lawrence Millman. He arrived on the island in 2004 to study fungi.
As he poked around, he kept encountering dozens of headless millipedes. The bodies were decapitated with clean precision. He came to believe that the killer was a vole.
Voles are common on Tuckernuck Island. The small, burrowing rodents are mostly herbivorous, but they seemed to be prime candidates.
Bokicbo – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
Millman ended up meeting McKenna-Foster, the director of the Maria Mitchell Association Natural Science Museum and spoke with him about his theory.
Mckenna-Foster took it upon himself to solve the mystery of the millipedes. During his studies, he noticed that a millipede had a bite wound on the back of its neck, a sign of a narrow escape from a predator.
Try as he might, he still couldn’t identify the decapitator. However, he suspected that a sparrow known as the eastern towhee was behind the beheadings.
These birds are often seen feeding along the sides of roads. They are omnivores and will devour both seeds and insects.
When Mckenna-Foster moved to Oregon, his friend Kardell took the reins on the project. One day, he spotted a black bird called a common grackle that was pecking at the ground in an odd manner.
He then saw that the bird was picking away at parts of a millipede still wriggling on the ground. It seemed like the common grackle was the one causing millipedes to lose their heads, but there weren’t very many of them on the island.
It’s possible that other creatures could be the real culprit, such as glowworm beetle larvae, jays, or shrews.
For now, the murder of the millipedes will remain a mystery until hard evidence finally presents itself.
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