Pair of Millipedes in Fossil Amber

With rare exception, the animal inclusions in amber are members of Phylum Arthropoda. Of these, the vast preponderance are members of Subphylum Insecta (one of the the many Orders of insects), that are evolutionary cousins to Class Myriapoda (that includes Diplopoda, the millipedes, and Chilopoda, the centipedes), as well as Subphylum Crustacea that includes shrimps and crabs. The spiders (in Subphylum Chelicerata), while fairly uncommon in amber, are more distant in their genetic relationship to insects than are Myriapoda. The millipedes are uncommon, and the centipedes are very rare in amber.

In this extraordinarily clear fossil amber, measuring more than three inches across, we have two nice millipedes.