The Diplopoda represent the Millipedes of which there are around 60-65 species recorded in Great Britain, although to date we have only recorded the one species in the Garden.

The classes Chilipoda (centipedes) and Diplopoda (millipedes) once belonged to the sub-phyla Myriapoda, the Myriapods, which basically means many legs. However, as time went by scientists realised centipedes and millipedes were not especially closely related and put them into their own classes. The most obvious difference when looking at them is that in centipedes each body segment supports one pair of legs, whilst for the millipedes most segments support two pairs of legs.