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iNat·882633SubfamilyAnimalia416 field observations
  1. Animals
  2. ›Arthropods
  3. ›Myriapods
  4. ›Millipedes
  5. ›Chilognathan Millipedes
  6. ›Worm-like Millipedes
  7. ›Eugnatha
  8. ›Merocheta
  9. ›Flat-backed Millipedes
  10. ›Leptodesmidea
  11. ›Xystodesmoidea
  12. ›Cherry Millipedes
Parafontariinae
Plate 1 of 2. (c) Ryosuke Kuwahara, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Ryosuke Kuwahara · via iNaturalist

Parafontariinae

Parafontaria is a genus of "flat-backed" millipedes (order Polydesmida) consisting of 13 species native to Japan, where they are known as train millipedes. Some species exhibit periodical swarming behavior during which large numbers of individuals congregate and can sometimes slow or derail trains when they occur on tracks. Individuals vary from around 3.5 to 6 cm (1.4 to 2.4 in) as adults, and feed on leaf litter as well as soil, making them comparable to earthworms in facilitating...

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1 branches of this subfamily, most-observed first

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Every page naming Parafontariinae in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →

This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 882633.