Every so often, someone stumbles across what looks like a strange pile of spaghetti wriggling across the ground — only it’s moving entirely on its own.
Thankfully, it’s not a monster or the start of a sci-fi horror story.
The “spaghetti ball” is actually a swarm of millipedes.
When millipedes are young, they tend to stick together, traveling in tight groups for safety and speed. Even adults sometimes gather and move this way, especially during mating season or when searching for food.
Their collective movement can be so impressive that it’s disrupted human life before. In the 1920s, massive swarms of millipedes in Japan began covering train tracks in such overwhelming numbers that trains had to shut down until the tracks were cleared.
Locals dubbed them the “train-stopping millipedes,” and scientists later discovered these events happened in the same region roughly every decade, sparking research into their mysterious life cycle.
While researchers still don’t fully understand all the secrets behind these creatures, one thing is certain — millipedes have a fascinating (and slightly unsettling) way of traveling that continues to puzzle and amaze anyone who sees it.
