An international team led by Virginia Tech researchers has completed the evolutionary family tree of millipedes, revealing they may have been crawling across Earth's landscapes nearly 460 million years ago.

How this affects you

This study significantly rewrites the timeline of terrestrial life, positioning millipedes as key early pioneers that helped prepare Earth for the colonization by vertebrates, including humans. By tracing their evolution and adaptations like chemical defenses, the research highlights the critical and underappreciated role of millipedes as 'ecosystem engineers' for hundreds of millions of years.