LOS ANGELES  —Los Angeles, a bustling city known for its traffic and freeways, has become home to a newly discovered species named after it: The Los Angeles Thread Millipede. Naturalists stumbled upon this tiny arthropod just below the surface in a Southern California hiking area, located near a freeway, Starbucks, and an Oakley sunglasses store.

Resembling a jellyfish tentacle, the millipede is paperclip-sized and slender, with a translucent appearance.

Blind and relying on hornlike antennas to navigate, it burrows about four inches below the ground and secretes unique chemicals. Under a microscope, the creature's 486 legs and helmet-shaped head appear straight out of a Hollywood monster film.

A research team, including scientists from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, West Virginia University, and the University of California, Berkeley, made this discovery. The findings, published in the journal ZooKeys on June 21, introduced the species as Illacme socal, or Los Angeles Thread Millipede.

The discovery highlights the existence of a hidden world underground. It joins other millipedes found in the state, including one previously considered the creature with the most legs ever recorded, named Illacme plenipes, with a remarkable 750 limbs.

The study of these species is crucial, as millipedes play a vital role in consuming dead organic matter and maintaining ecological balance.

The discovery of the Los Angeles Thread Millipede came about through the iNaturalist app, where citizen naturalists Cedric Lee and James Bailey posted their find from Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park in Orange County four years ago. DNA sequencing and analysis confirmed it as a new species.

The abundance of undiscovered species remains vast, with an estimated 10 million animal species on Earth, of which only one million have been identified. Brian Brown, curator of entomology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, led the BioSCAN research project, which found around 20,000 insect species in Los Angeles alone.

However, threats such as climate change and invasive species endanger native species.

Daniel Gluesenkamp, president of the California Institute for Biodiversity, emphasizes the need to invest in local parks and protect any remaining patches of wild land to conserve and understand the diverse species existing in these unexplored frontiers.