The BIGGEST Bug in America Giant Gold Millipede The Wild Files 1080p h264 youtube

The biggest bug to ever live was a millipede, and the biggest bug alive today here in America is also a millipede, but it makes these guys look like absolute pipsqueaks. So today we're going to look for a nine-inch behemoth and figure out why, for the past 300 million years, these have been the biggest bugs on earth. There's a few contenders for the biggest bug in America, but none of them get quite as long as the giant gold millipede. A unique population of desert millipede that gets unusually large and incredibly beautiful. To see for myself just how enormous it is and how it stacks up to the country's other huge arthropods, I've driven down to Carlsbad, New Mexico, and conditions here are looking perfect for finding one. All right, the best possible thing for our search just happened. It has started to rain. Rain is like syrup on waffles. It's just a great combination here in the desert. All the stuff lurking in the sediment is gonna wake up, go explore the outside world now that there's enough moisture to enjoy it, and hopefully it means we will find some of our elusive desert species. I've seen with other millipedes just how much a desert rain shower can bring them to the surface. I mean, all the ones I had in the intro I only found in like five minutes. And luckily for me, the same goes for the giant I'm looking for, because when the rain stopped, I finally struck gold. All right, we saw this crossing the road, and I thought it was like a piece of construction equipment. Look at the size of this millipede. This right here is the desert millipede, the biggest in the country, and look at the size and color of that. Look at that. Look at how big it is compared to my hands, and I mean, I'm 6'3". My hands are pretty big, and that thing is just enveloping them. Wow, that is amazing. It is like the same length as the giant millipedes in the Philippines I've filmed, but this guy went on Ozempic or something. He's a lot skinnier, but wow, the size of that. And the color of this guy, this is one of the more beautiful millipedes I've ever seen, that bumblebee yellow with the nice kind of like rusted orangish-brown stripes. Wow, that is an absolute monster. Measuring with my hands, I'm guessing this guy is about 7 inches long, a size only rivaled by the biggest insect and biggest centipede in the country. But the giant gold millipede beats them both at max size by getting 9 inches in length, a true giant among arthropods. But why is this thing so big? How come it can get larger than some snakes while most bugs are downright tiny? Well, it comes down to three reasons, and one is its most famous feature. Now with this one, you can really tell why it has the name millipede, which means thousand legs. Just look at all of those legs. If you count all the segments on its body, it has two pairs of legs for each of them. So if you want to freeze frame and do the math, you could actually count how many legs this has. Not quite a thousand, but still an impressive amount and more than most millipedes out there, I'm sure. All right, I know I left the ball in your court to count the legs, but I just got curious and did it myself. This millipede has 72 segments, which means it has 288 legs and insane amount and a reason why these bugs can get so big. Insects only have six legs, so each one has to support a sixth of the weight and arachnid an eighth of its weight. But with each leg only needing to support a 300th of its weight, there's no limit to how big millipedes can get, which is how we ended up with a gigantic eight foot long arthropleura 300 million years ago, the biggest bug of all time. But there's another reason why millipedes today get so big, and that's because very few things can eat them. The bigger a bug gets, the more it's a worthy meal for large predators. And most bugs don't have a defense that can fend off a hungry mammal or a bird. But millipedes are different. Each pore on the side of their body sprays out a toxic liquid. In some species, like the giant gold, it'll just make the millipede taste like crap and make it impossible to eat. But with others, like the Philippine blue, their spray can lead to brutal skin blisters and supposedly even blindness. The last reason why millipedes can get so big is because of what they eat. These guys are like living trash bins, eating all the decaying and disgusting things that most animals won't touch. Nature has a lot of detritus lying around, so millipedes have an endless supply of food to fuel their massive bodies. But what I find interesting is the opposite side of the coin. Their close relatives, the centipedes, are also some of the biggest bugs alive today, but took a very different path, the path of violence. These are active hunters, which fuel their huge bodies by killing giant prey with their agonizing venom. I recently found out firsthand just how painful a centipede bite is. So if you want to see me in excruciating pain, check out my video on it. Or if you want to learn more about that giant Philippine millipede's brutal defense, you can do that as well. And I'll see you guys next time.